The Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy
by jennii.b
Summary: Rex is reliable and steadfast and true. His strength pulls his jedi generals out of any number of tight spots. One, however, has a vise on his heart that will never shake loose... not that he'd ever want it to. (Rex OC) (rated for minimal cursing, some romantic overture)
1. separate feelings

**separating feelings from emotions**

Afir let the silence ring around her. It wasn't silence so much as a drastic reduction in noise. She envied the clones sometimes their sound-proofed helmets. Her ears throbbed from the echoing boom of blasters and cannons and buildings crashing to the ground - - rubble where once there was splendor and achievement.

Still, the noise of battle was preferable to what was left in its wake. The sounds of men - - most too stoic to cry out in pain - - gasping, groaning, breathing their last. The harsh breaths of those around her as they searched for the ones their HUDs said were still alive-trapped or motionless in the wake of the war's travel across this moon. Their calls as they reassured comrades that they weren't alone, weren't forgotten.

Afir grieved as she felt the life force ebbing from the man at her side. For clone or no, he was a man - - an individual known to her. He preferred dry rations to the canned, reconstituted gruel they'd been living on for days. He liked to sing and often did so in a robust voice. His smile was quick, his wit, too, and he lost both when the time came to get down and dirty. He was a warrior - - born and bred to it, created for it - - but she wondered what he'd have been if he'd been just another man, free to choose. What his calling would have been had his DNA not been replicated and mutated from that of a man who'd found his calling in killing.

Afir looked up as the voices came closer.

"Here!" she called. "Over here! Litter urgent!"

It brought them running, members of the Skywalker's squad and Kenobi's squad together. One of the latter hit his comm.

"We've got 'er, sir."

"Haston," she told them, still applying pressure to the wound, still envisioning the wound's gaping edges to constrict and heal, her hands disappearing into what had once been super-strong armor to where what had been a super-strong man and friend was bleeding out. His face was dark from the soot, his hair and the fine, white armor black from it. "I can't stop the bleeding," she confessed in a quiet voice as they rushed in.

She was quickly in the way as those with more skill for triage - - and more stomach for it - - worked over their own. A transport swooped in and he was lifted by those comrades, those brothers in arms, to be taken directly to the ship circling overhead.

Afir was left standing with a bevy of the white-clad warriors. As soon as the LAARTi was outbound most scattered again, searching out the places where their helmet displays told them friends waited. She turned to the one who stood slightly behind her and to the side.

"Thank you, Rex."

He nodded. "Luther was looking for you. General Skywalker hadn't heard from you. He was worried about losing General Yoda's favorite pet." He said it gently, smiled softly at her, trying to provoke a quick-biting retort. Her heart wasn't in it, though. She faced the man bearing the insignia of Kenobi's 212th instead.

"I'm fine. Please reassure the General that you've found me and that I'll be in to report shortly."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. He turned to do so and Afir turned to Rex, who was removing his helmet.

"Are there more?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They're all on their way in now. The battlefield's clear."

She nodded, her face tight, and turned to survey what had once been a thriving artist's district. She'd been on this planet before. Had enjoyed her mission here, had enjoyed offering them membership to the senate and the protection of the jedi order. This was what that had led to. She'd been called back here because of her familiarity with the city. Because of her good relations with the population. And she'd destroyed their homes, their businesses, their dreams.

She sucked in a ragged breath and turned again, ready to trudge back to the command center. Only the sight of Haston's blood on the muddy ground brought her to a quick stop.

"If you're ready, ma'am?" Rex asked, reaching out a hand to encourage her. He'd served under her - - or, more accurately, beside her as another jedi's troops - - plenty of times before. Always he thought her too fragile for this work. Capable, yes. Dedicated and driven and dependable. But so much more as well. She didn't think of them as necessary losses. She couldn't weigh the cost in lives. Couldn't decide a course of action based on acceptable risk. So she'd never be the general that Kenobi and Skywalker were. She couldn't be. It wasn't in her to be. And he admired that greatly about her.

Now she nodded and moved to dash away the tears with the back of her fist.

Leaving a smear on the finely wrought cheek.

Blood, mud, whatever muck had been splattered over her as she'd battled side-by-side with his men...it turned his stomach to see it there and without thinking he quickly removed his glove to wipe it away with his own fingers.

"Here, now," he told her, offering a canteen so that she could splash her fingertips clean. He took one in his own hand, scrubbing at it himself as he trickled the water slowly over the stains. "That's better, isn't it?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes. She merely nodded and stepped away.

"Haston will be fine," he assured her. He was lying and they both knew it. If his helmet had been on he'd already have gotten word. "Let's get you back to General Kenobi so he knows that you really are whole. I wouldn't want General Skywalker to get in trouble."

"He knows that Obi-Wan and I are linked," she told him in a monotone. "We all would have felt it if one of us had gone down."

He nodded. He wasn't sure how the force worked but he knew that it did. Still, he gestured with one arm and they joined Luther for the long trudge back to their on-planet command center.


	2. gifts and talents

**gifts and talents**

"You said you had a link to General Skywalker this afternoon, ma'am," one of the novices began as he stood next to Afir Kuay Li'in. "But the general has said a few times that sometimes he'd like to be hooked in to our systems - - to know what was going on everywhere and all that, you understand? And I don't understand, if you know what I mean."

She nodded, _grace under fire_, Rex thought. She'd sought solitude, found herself instead being surrounded by these eager young pups. She was less intimidating, perhaps, than the jedi masters they were used to. Certainly more approachable than a lot of them. And there was something about her that made them all want to stand next to her, just to pass a few moments in conversation with her. She made them feel _human_. All the way human. Like she was their sister or mother or girlfriend. She'd spent time, not bolstering morale as a commander, but petting each of the men in the healer's station. She'd listened intently to each med droid explain condition and recovery and prognosis. She'd linked fingers with a few of them as battered limbs were prepped to be replaced with synthetic ones, as gashes were stitched, as bacta was applied and dressings were changed.

He'd watched her.

Now she would explain the mystery of her gift to Thatchen.

"All jedi are force-sensitive. It's part of what makes us what we are. There are other beings, too, who carry the talent. The Sith for one. When I told General Skywalker's man that he should have known I was all right because we were linked I made reference to that, not to real-time battle-data. Nothing like in the HUDs. He wouldn't have been able to zoom in on me and find me if I were lost. Although maybe Obi-Wan could have. Anakin and I are linked through Obi-Wan. He and I have always been very, very close. Closer, probably, than you and your brothers. It goes beyond being friends and beyond being partners." She shrugged. "It's there and it's real. When something happens we can sense it - - even worlds away from each other. When I passed my trials he knew. He knew without even being told that I was going - - he was on a mission on Harraban. I was on Ilum. And as soon as he dropped out of hyperspace there was a comm from him saying congratulations; it was waiting on me when I got back to the ship. We absolutely empathize. I felt it - - physically felt it - - when his master was killed. The pain ripped through each of us simultaneously. And we've lived our whole lives with that sort of connection. That's what I meant. Only that Anakin would have known if I'd been dead or injured because Obi-Wan would have felt my pain or the loss of connection and since Obi-Wan and Anakin are linked almost as closely it would have rippled over to him as well."

"Maybe he did feel it," Rex interrupted.

Afir's head shot around to where he was lounging on against a support strut, his head back against the wall of the craft. He'd sought solitude as well. And he loved these little nooks and crannies and had found a comfortable one atop the conduit that ran through the docking bay where he could watch the stars pass.

"He felt your pain and it frightened him," he told the jedi master regarding him now.

"I wasn't injured," she argued, shaking her head. Tears threatened. "I've not a scratch on me, not a single bruise or mark or scar."

Rex nodded sadly at her. "Then it's time to check inside. If there was a soul that didn't feel your pain this afternoon it's a callous one. No one watching you with my boys could say that you didn't hurt for them. And when we found you with Haston-"

She stopped him by raising her hand and shaking her head. "You've made your point."

"It wasn't a criticism. It means a lot - - especially to us - - it means a lot."

Their eyes met and she remembered his kindnesses, the soft whisper touch of his hand on her cheek, the way he'd sought to help her cleanse herself of the battle's aftermath.

Now he gestured to her, just a flick of his fingers, a tightening of his hand. And she responded automatically to the command for her to come closer. Forgetting completely the other man present she swayed toward him, then took the few steps haltingly, finally kneeling at his side.

"You did the job, General. It's time to accept that. Men die. Better that we have generals like you and General Kenobi and General Skywalker who respect us and see us as valuable resources. There are others who don't. But nothing that happened today was your fault. If you think you didn't make a difference, think again. Haston was going to die today. That's the way of it. But you might not have been beside him. He might have been alone and hurting and bleeding out. Instead he went out with the picture of you in his head, with your pretty hair against the sunshine and the blue sky. And that's something. It's something, Afir Kuay Li'in."

She nodded. She didn't quite believe him, but he called up some feelings of pride and understanding. He made her feel safe, she thought. Which was an odd concept all in all. Of course she was safe. She'd been safe all her life. But no one made her feel secure in her sadness and fear and despair like this. Shifting, she turned so that she could rest her back against the conduit housing upon which he sat. She let out a deep breath and his hand came down to cover her shoulder.

"You just rest now, princess."

"I am no princess," she corrected him automatically in a voice that barely carried. "I am a jedi. A lone jedi fighting too many fronts at once. Against my own and against their enemies. My order has gone mad and the world is shifting dangerously."

He nodded and his response was a gentle pat. "A jedi princess, then, master. It doesn't matter. Let it flow out of you and build yourself back up. There's plenty of war left. I'll get back for Haston. You stay true to yourself and leave the others to me. _All_ the others. I'm tough enough to take 'em on. You just let it go now."

She nodded. Vengeance wasn't for the jedi. But she couldn't blame this man as he spoke of payback and retribution in soft, soothing tones. She did let her eyes close, let her head fall back.

And for hours he sat there, long after he would have sought out the company of his own men, just watching her breath.


	3. decisions, discussions

**decisions and discussions**

Afir Kuay-Li'in and Obi-Wan Kenobi had been hunched over for a good long while, drawing in the dirt with sticks. It was time to ante up and get moving.

Apparently the general thought so, too - - _finally._ "Okay, then," he nodded, standing.

The woman rose beside him. It always surprised Rex when he saw her beside someone else. He thought of her as tiny, delicate. And while her bone structure certainly wasn't that of a Boglian, she was no shrinking violet. In her slightly heeled boots she stood nearly as tall as Kenobi, who was eyeball-to-eyeball with most of the clones. It was especially apparent when she drew herself up, like now, as though preparing for battle or steeling herself for some internal decision. Still, her bones were finely wrought and no one could deny that she had an air of fragility about her. _Ladylike_, he decided. A jedi princess if ever there was one. Apprenticed to the council from what he understood - - a first in the order. Petted by Mace Windu and Ki Adi Mundi and even Yoda himself.

"It's settled?" she asked suspiciously. "No arguments, no conditions, you're seeing my point and admitting I'm right?"

"Absolutely," the red-headed man agreed cheerfully. Rex wanted to warn the girl not to trust him as far as she could spit - - throwing being out of the question seeing as to how those jedi force-pushed people around like the very bloomin' wind. "The target bears watching. As do several others. We'll just round you up a squad of men and you can quietly go about checking it out."

Her eyes narrowed. Her jaw clenched. "I'm not taking a squad of Anakin's men on what might very possibly be an ambush. I'll go alone and see what I can find out. Too many boots create too much chance of being found out if there is a presence to be discovered."

"No. You'll be properly escorted so that if there is a real threat you've adequate fire power to take care of it. I'll not have you wandering around a hostile planet by yourself."

"It's not your battlefront. You're hopping aboard a cruiser as soon as you decide we're done here!"

"Exactly - - otherwise I'd go with you or do it myself - - _with a squad of my own men, Afir."_

"It's really up to Anakin," she told him, lifting her brows. She managed to look down at him despite the three inches he had on her.

"Anakin?" Kenobi asked.

The clones around them were hard pressed not to laugh when the younger man looked up and feigned horror.

"Oh, no, Master. You are not pulling me into this. I'll never win, either way. If I side with you, she tells on me to the council. If I side with her, you remind me about it for the rest of my life."

"It's probably a death march for a group of any size, Anakin," Afir scolded. "You cannot condemn your men-"

"Begging your pardon, but we've trained to move careful. If all you're talking is a squad, that's only eight men, Master," Rex told her.

She turned her wrathful gaze on him. He met it head-on, fighting a grin. He liked the sight of her riled.

"It could very possibly turn into a suicide mission. There's no evidence of the Separatists having an ongoing presence on this planet. But they left too quickly, too easily for me to swallow. It's a hunch. And if it's correct, it could mean getting killed. Just to prove a point."

"This whole war's just to prove somebody else's point to my way of thinking," Rex told her. "It's what we do. It'd be an honor to escort you, though. We'd never shirk the responsibility or the danger."

"Excellent," Kenobi announced. "It's settled then. To minimize the guilt you seem intent on feeling, let's have a show of hands." He raised his voice and let his gaze take in the surrounding troops. "Master Afir has a task of some considerable danger. Or it may be a dead bantha race. Any volunteers?"

Every hand shot up. She rolled her eyes.

"No, Obi-Wan."

His hands came up and he scrubbed at his face. "What do you want?"

"Freedom fighters," she answered immediately. "Patriots. Volunteers from the planet we're on so that I can set up a resistance, a network to seek out and destroy the Separatists because of a moral inability to do otherwise. I think a hundred individuals should do it here. The number will vary from planet to planet."

"Impossible. I'll let you gather volunteers. But they'll be from my ranks. Possibly Anakin's or Ki's. But you'll not be left unguarded with every possibility that the people you're recruiting are in fact double agents."

"If I can get some proof tomorrow it may be a moot point."

"Indeed," he said drily. "Indeed."

Rex decided the matter, smiling broadly. "X squad, form on me. The rest of you…general's orders."

Kenobi embraced Afir, then Anakin, both with great gusto - - ending with a smacking kiss on the forehead for each. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he warned the young man before he swung onto his waiting swoop bike.

Anakin reached out to shake Rex's hand. "Take care of her. If anything happens to her on a planet I'm occupying I'll never get a seat on the council," he joked. Afir winked at him. "May the force be with you."

"May the force be with you."


	4. risky rescue

**risky rescue**

Afir heard Ahsoka's little voice before she felt her in the force. Which was quite a surprise, considering her line of work.

"Master!" the little Trogruta yelped. She seemed as surprised as anyone. "We're here! We've come!"

"I told you we'd come get you," Anakin grinned at her.

Afir wished she had the guts to rip his arms out of their sockets and beat him to death with his own lightsaber handle.

"I hope you brought reinforcements," she murmured. "We're not getting out of here alive."

Helena Davis looked over at the uniformed jedi. She'd heard the comment and wondered at it.

"Doing a bit of fortune-telling now, Commander?" Rex asked. "Don't mind me if I put more faith in the blood and guts delivery system than your mystic mob sense, will you?"

Afir arched a brow at him and snickered. He and Anakin flanked the door and prepared for violent egress. "Ready?" the clone captain asked over his shoulder.

"I'll read your palm for a coin, soldier. Just let me find my crystal ball." She drew her own blaster and held her lightsaber at arm's length.

"Good girl," Rex purred. His hand signals meant something to the men in his command, even if some of his companions were forced to rely on verbal messaging.

Altis considered the proprietary feelings he felt from the ranking clone. Very few of the clones he'd met were _protective_ of the jedi in such a way. It wasn't an assignment. It wasn't a combat bond. There were soft, _warm_ feelings from the clone toward the young woman. Quite a different warmth than the amusement and kinship that he read Rex emitting toward Ahsoka Tano. This was like hero worship and affection. And, again, very different from what the clone felt toward Anakin, who held quite a bit of his loyalty. It was tangling. It was very much like a man with a woman he loved and respected. The marrying kind of love and respect.

Altis wondered that the other jedi didn't pick up on the attachment. Or perhaps they had. He'd known Master Yoda's pet negotiator for very few moments himself and he knew without a doubt that he was a better person for it. She was simple. Of all the traits he admired, that was his favorite. She seemed to weigh every heartbeat, reassessing with every second that passed-deciding which risks were worth the effort-and consciously deciding on a course of action. He'd heard Anakin complaining to his company that she wouldn't have been in this mess if she'd had her own troops around to help her. He'd heard Rex chide his general that the woman was her own and that it was better that she live life her own way than succumb to another's vision. The trooper had said something about packing springtime away into a box. Altis understood the emotion. Better to let the seasons come and go-better to let the woman answer the call to her own conscience-than to try to hem in what couldn't be safely contained.

"Anakin?" Afir asked now. The younger man turned, concern on his face. "I don't feel good about this..."

"Relax, Master," he assured her. "I'm here, Rex is here, and we even brought some extra jedi juice to amp up the ante. We'll get you home safe."

Fear and regret oozed out of the woman's aura. Her face was grim as she nodded sharply. It wasn't agreement. It was resignation. One of Rex's men-the one who introduced himself as Hil-reached out and patted her elbow.

"We'll get you out of here, ma'am," he echoed. "We're young yet, but we're good at this."

"What a thing for us to achieve," she said, reaching out to touch the chin of his helmet with the back of her hand. "We cannot cure all ills, cannot mend all injustice, but we've managed to flash raise a race of men with compassion and bravery and-"

"Shush, now," Rex cooed from the doorway. "We're proud to be here. My guys-we're happy to come get you, anytime you need us, Master Kuay Li'in. You know that. We don't need all the pretty words."

There was a faint beep as her blaster reached full charge.

"On my count." Rex's voice changed and he was in command again. No more comforting, now it was all business.

Afir looked up at Rex as he jumped aboard the ramp. She was elbow-deep in his brethren.

"If you do something like that again I'll have you reconditioned," she said softly as she glanced back down.

"You'll try," he teased her. His heart wasn't in it and she looked up again, her miserable face meeting his eyes despite the opaqueness of his visor. She could always find their eyes. She just _knew_ and it made more than one of them feel stripped naked. Now the expression of mourning and worry and despair twisted the ache in his gut even tighter. He wished he could find some safe hole to shove her in and keep her there until this war was over.

"I'm going to get on the gun," he announced to no one in particular.

"Anakin's got the ship well in hand," she told him. "I'll watch out for Ince while you're gone."

She'd watched over Vere, too. He'd felt the swell of emotion as she'd comforted his dying comrade. Both had known there was no other possible outcome, but she'd eased the man's final breaths and Rex had seen how much that had taken out of her. As if days and days of surviving on a hostile planet with probably very little to eat or drink and certainly no creature comforts hadn't done enough, she'd been willing to give everything in her for a man she'd never met before.

She'd be empty-hollow-long before this war was over.

There'd be nothing left to give if she kept up at this pace.

And that was just what he knew of her.

When Rex went back to the medcentre to check on Ince's belongings he found himself face to face with the jedi again. Too soon for comfort.

Afir had waited as long as she could when she'd felt the man's life energy merge with the force. She'd known her claim on him was negligible so she'd continued to help the med droids and human physicians in medbay with the other wounded men and women. But now she sought to comfort herself. Tears fell from her eyes as she stroked the dark hair that had only just begun to grow out of the standard Kamino issue-clipped close on the sides, cropped almost flat on top.

"Two for two," she said as the clone came back in. "Was it worth it?"

His heart raced out of control as she looked up and met his eyes.

"Worth losing two of mine to save the two of you?"

Afir nodded and he shrugged. His mind leapt with more conviction. _Yes!_ followed quickly by _No! Never!_. "I'd give my own life to protect yours, Master Kuay Li'in. The offer's been made before."

"I can't stand myself right now," she told him. "I hate myself. I hate Helena Davis. I hate the Regent and Republic Intell and the Seps and Master Syfo-Dyas."

"That's quite a list," he told her. He began to empty the man's pouches and pockets. She continued to stroke the dead man's head as if he were a child with a headache.

"What makes our lives more worthy than his?" she asked him. "I can promise to defend you with my life. I can promise to defend truth and democracy and justice...with _my_ life. But how can I demand that of another? How can any moral person send a slave to a place where he might die to defend someone else's ideals? And where the hell are our ideals on Fath? The Regent?" She snorted. "He can go to hell. His ideals are not _my_ ideals. The rebels? How do they justify killing their own? What is justifiable risk? What is the trade-off between bloodbath and necessary evil?"

Rex's hand shook as he covered hers with it. "You need to find a quiet place. A place where you can shut it all down, shut it all out. We're lucky in that, I guess. I can hide in my armor and not deal with any of you. I can filter you out and stay sane until the world seems safe again. Where do you go?"

She shook her head. "I'm for Gareth next," she told him. "There's another damned agent out of contact. Another world that neither side has managed to destroy yet."

"Are we tasked to you?"

She met his eyes directly again. Helmet and all, she looked right at him.

"I hope not, Captain. I hope not. I cannot bear the thought of another man dying under my banner. The blood of strangers is far preferable to me than that of you and your men."

"Be that as it may, Master Jedi, think on this-if we'd never been created we'd still not be here. Our lives may seem slim and meaningless to you. We may be a cause or cause for debate, but whatever the source, whatever the reason...we're here now. We have this one chance to live that we never would have gotten if there hadn't been a need for an army. So maybe it's right, or maybe it's wrong, but the same slavery that created us _created_ us. I'll take my chances. I'll get as close as possible to as many of the lads as I can so that I can say that I was touched by something, by someone. I'll teach them so that when they die they'll be able to have _lived_-even if it is a limited life in a barracks waiting for the drum and bugle to sound us to war."

"You're a better human than I, Rex," Afir said softly.

"It's because I'm designed to be as perfect as humanly possible," he told her, squeezing her hand under his again. "And you jedi are just random creatures with superior sensor arrays." She started to slide her hand out from beneath his.

"Thank you..."


	5. convictions

**conversational convictions**

Anakin overheard Afir discussing her shortcomings with his padawan.

"But isn't the mission the most important thing?" Ahsoka asked.

Afir's lips pressed together. He saw her shiver and it disquieted him. The light of the cooking fire was unnecessary for warmth as far as his troops were concerned. And the jedi had their cloaks and their training to help keep out the cold. And yet here was where they gathered, drawn like moths to its light, to the fellowship around it. Afir was silent for a long moment, staring at the fire. Anakin watched her. For once his padawan bided her time.

"The mission is important, Ahsoka," Afir told her seriously, still watching the flickering flame. "Perhaps that's why I've not been given command, not been conferred the title of 'general.' Because I'm just not willing to risk it. It just doesn't seem worth lives."

A trooper reached over and patted her knee. "That's not so," he argued. "You went in there today like a demon with a mission. Most of us would have thought twice. There's protocol to follow when a soldier goes down. But you leapt in there, just like we weren't a dime a dozen, just to reach Garmon. And what about that whole expedition last month on Kentubu? Who volunteered for that? That wasn't a risk?"

"It's different." She turned to face the smaller jedi. "It's different, Ahsoka, and never forget that. It's easy for some people to commit troops to battle, to weigh and gauge risk and reward. It's necessary to lead from the rear at times and I understand that. It's absolutely black and white for them. And it's true and good and right that they serve the purpose. For me it's not. I can put myself on the line any time and not think twice about it. But I will not be the voice that sends another to die. It's my weakness. My begetting sin. I'll never be an effective councilmember because of it. Never be the general that Obi-Wan is, the born leader that Anakin is. My role is more solitary, I suppose."

Obi-Wan snorted from behind her. "Solitary is it?" His arms swept wide to encompass the men around them as he hauled his weary bones up the hill and sat down behind her.

"She's young yet, sir," Cody told his general. "She'll get the hang of it."

Obi-Wan shook his head and gently petted the long tail of hair hanging down Afir's back. "I hope to all the gods in all the heavens not, my friend. I hope not."

"Because it would mean that she wouldn't be the same?" Ahsoka asked.

Obi-Wan nodded. "In all my years as a jedi I've always been able to come back to Afir. She's been steady as a rock. It's not a weakness. It's simply another way of looking at things. And it means that when Afir is in charge of a mission she'll reach a peaceful settlement ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Because the alternative is so awful for her. And it means that every time she goes out I'm terrified she won't come back. Because she would so rather be the one to pay the sacrifice than risk another being's welfare."

"That's what we're here for, Master Kuay-Li'in," one of the troops called out. "You let us worry about getting down and dirty. Don't you lose any sleep over it."

Afir smiled into the silhouetted figures, unsure who had spoken. Then she glanced over at Ahsoka. "Obi-Wan is a fantastic teacher, a true jedi master. He has an unshakable faith and yet a pragmatism that makes him see the balance. Listen to him. Anakin is a natural alpha male. He's confident and imaginative and loyal and dedicated. Emulate him, too. But do this for me-do this one thing, so that you never forget. Know every man. Know his name, not his number. His favorite color. Favorite music. Favorite food. What kind of weather he likes best. Where he'd go if he had a day off, a week off. And never forget them. And, someday, when this is over, make sure that you stand in those places. Because it's these men who are going to secure them as safe havens. And when your missions send you there, when you look out over those vistas, remember him then, too. And give him the honor he deserves as a man, an individual, not one of a faceless mass. They're one of us, part of our tribe. Keep them together; keep their fight - - their sacrifice - - in your heart. And remember what made them smile. It's the least you can do for these brothers who are called on to fall first."

"The ones who fell first," a deep voice echoed. Another seconded it. Someone near her lifted his canteen cup, probably full of nothing stronger than caf, and offered her words as a toast. As all of those within hearing lifted their cups and joined their voices Rex's eye caught Afir's. And he nodded in approval. That meant a hell of a lot to his men, what she'd said. She truly considered them equals. It was something to think on.

He wasn't supposed to hear the conversation in the command tent that night.

"Nobody asked them if they wanted to do this!"

"No one asked the Lilostian's if they wanted their home invaded by the Separatists either, Afir! This is what their job is. It's what they do!"

"It's not like they're given a choice! Even their genes have been shaped to serve this single purpose! When was the last time anyone enrolled a clone in an arts class. Or a judiciary review. Or a consortium on clean fuel?"

"Afir!" Obi-Wan reached out, grasped her by the upper arms, and shook her gently. "What is the difference here? How many missions have we not been on together where getting out alive was touch and go? You never hesitated then to outline a plan with risks - - and not just risks for yourself, but for us all!"

Tears fell. They coursed down her cheeks and broke the man's heart. "Obi-Wan, we volunteered. We knew what the risks were when we left the temple. And we always have a choice. I can quit tomorrow - - just walk away and pretend that I've seen nothing. What's in them makes that impossible. And I will not be party to that. It's wrong. Maybe not for you and maybe not for Anakin and maybe not for Masters Yoda or Windu or Mundi. But it is for me." She met his eyes. "I cannot do it."

"Did you ever think that what's in _our_ blood demands that we do what we do as well? That it is the midichlorians that drive jedi and thus the midichlorians dictate our life course every bit as much as the mutations in the clones' cells."

She shook her head. "It's something to consider, Obi-Wan." Her words admitted that he had a worthy and reasonable point. Her tone told him that she still couldn't see it as reason - - that she wouldn't let herself be reasoned with that evening.

"But not your answer," he sighed.


	6. finding new lights

**finding new lights**

The darkness was complete. The silence echoed.

A sharp snap, then light was born into the darkness, slowly at first...then illuminating the people standing there...and then spreading out some distance. Rex had lit a glow rod. The light wasn't the best. It wouldn't last forever. But it was better than nothing.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked her quietly, his face serious as he took off his helmet. Some of his brethren were comfortable in the helmets all the time, removing them only to sleep in secure locations. He liked to look beings in the face, to know that they knew he was meeting them eye-to-eye. And he simply didn't want the reminders at the moment.

"Yes," she told him, not thinking about it, almost hissing the word.

His concern was real. She stood nearly as tall as he in her slightly heeled boots. But she still seemed so delicate to him, so perishable. They'd been out in the elements for two days now with only the slimmest of rations-nutribombs-to sustain them. He and his men were more than adequately protected in their waterproof, temp-regulated armor and helmets. She wore the seeming jedi uniform - - the tall boots, basic slim trousers, a fitted tunic of sorts and the ever-present hooded robe. The pale orange light reflected off her face, revealing the thick, dark hair that fell past her shoulders. The soft lips, smooth cheeks. The circles beneath her eyes.

"Are you certain?" He'd build her a fire from his own uniform if need be, but he needed to know _now_ so that there were no surprises later.

"Are any of your men trapped?" she asked, moving to the wall of stone that now encased them.

"No," he answered immediately.

"They escaped?" she asked, her brow furrowed as she looked over her shoulder at him. They'd left the squad at the front of the cave while they investigated how deep it was and what might be cohabitating with them. She'd regret the decision, made at the time to preserve their safety.

"No," he answered. His chin lifted as he regarded her, his shoulders straightened and his chest puffed up. And his heart raced. His men had not escaped.

"I don't understand," she complained as she put a foot in a groove and started to pull herself up. Her aim was to start moving rocks from the top so as to first vent and then escape the cave-in. "Your helmet doesn't pick up here?"

"There's nothing to pick up," he told her, still frighteningly close to attention.

"Nothing to pick up?"

"They're no longer with us, General." His voice was tough, chiding.

And she finally got it.

"Damn _it_," she muttered, dropping back. "Dammit." Her whole body collapsed upon gaining the hard dirt floor. She simply folded where she came down, falling into a position of meditation. Only it looked more like dejection or self-recrimination to Rex. "I'm so sorry," she told him, looking up. Tears shone on her cheeks in the dim light like silvery streaks in her otherwise dusty face. Rex's helmet made a handy stool and he moved to sit beside her.

"It happens," he told her, clapping her shoulder. She shook her head. "I agreed with leaving them out there. Neither of us knew this was going to happen-"

"My decision, my responsibility."

"Mine," he corrected. "My squad."

"I'm so sorry," she breathed again.

"There was no comm chatter immediately following the explosion," he told her. "So it was either a natural cave-in or pre-existing charges - - booby traps."

"Not artillery, because then there would have been some sort of communication and even if we couldn't pick up a channel you'd have picked up that a frequency was in use and being blocked?"

"Got it," he affirmed. "You're getting good at this."

Her voice was a void of emotion. "What a thing to accomplish."

They'd moved rocks. They'd looked for other openings. They'd found only a sinkhole type of drop that went down as far as Afir's liquid cable hooked to Rex's static line could reach. Even at that depth, with the lantern held away from her, she couldn't see the bottom. Couldn't hear the thump of a fairly good sized rock hitting the bottom. That was when they'd gone back to moving rocks.

It took some doing, some foresight and planning and an appreciation for engineering.

"Well?" he asked.

She shook her head. He couldn't see it, but he figured from her silence that she was either transmitting or frowning. "Still no signal," she admitted finally.

"Not good."

Rex slid to the side so that she could wiggle back out of the tunnel they'd created near the top of the pile of boulders. They'd been a significant ways in when the collapse occurred. So far they'd dug through probably ten feet of rock - - carefully assessing each step of the way to avoid causing major cave-ins on top of them. They weren't close enough to the surface to transmit a call for help.

His helmet worked. The infrared worked. He could 'see' her heat signature as well as the last set of vitals for the men at the entrance to the cave. He'd received no additional data, though, and couldn't get through, so that meant there was probably forty or fifty feet of rock separating them from fresh air. And whatever was keeping them from transmitting.

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes." He was silent - - thoughtful - -for a long span of many heartbeats. "Are you?"

She pursed her lips and looked out over the scene unfolding before them.

"Only when I'm not with you," she said quietly. She looked up at him with her clear, shining eyes. Eyes that haunted him at night when he tried to sleep. Eyes that beckoned him during the daylight hours.

That was when he lost his mind.

He reached down for her, drawing her closer, then letting his eyes slide closed as he pressed his lips to hers.

A whimper. A sigh. A sound like rending from his own throat, and he deepened the kiss, drawing her lips gently apart. He didn't know what the hell he was doing. On a couple different levels. The gentler sex hadn't been a subject of Kamino's flash trainings, other than differing signs of respect and aggression towards them as leaders and regents of allied worlds.

Rex figured he had to be doing something right when his jedi princess shifted closer to him. The feel of her fingertips in his hair, soothing and kneading the nape of his neck, made him want to purr like one of the big jungle cats they'd been taught to be wary of.

"Oh, gods," she moaned as she pulled away and ducked her face into his neck.

He let his breath hiss out and petted at her back.

_Overstepped this time, big boy,_ he told himself.

"I don't know what to do with this feeling inside me," she confessed. "I don't know how to do this…"

"I have you," he promised. He couldn't help but press a chaste kiss to the sweet temple so near him. "I'm sor-"

Her sob broke off his apology and his arms tightened around her as hers snaked around him to clutch him tighter. The feeling in his gut changed from hot churning to cold stone.

"I shouldn't want this. Not like this," she confessed. "I should push you away. Pull back. Passion is against our mandates. Attachment is forbidden us." He felt tears now, hot and searing as they soaked into the high neck of his armor's liner.

"I'm sorry - - I'm so, so sorry," he began again, chanting it as he rocked her.

"I'm not built like the others," she whispered into the black air around them. "There's something in me that's not quite jedi."

He figured he'd be condemned to any being's hell for his complete agreement there. There was something intoxicating about her. Something beyond the pleasure a man felt in a fine female form that called to him. Something otherworldly about how she made him feel inside.

"I believe that, Princess," he groaned. "I believe you're a better human for it, if not a better jedi."

She shook her head as she pulled back slightly to look at him.

He cupped her pretty, tear-streaked face. "I never meant to cause you more angst, love," he told her. "I didn't think…before…"

She watched him. Watched his mouth while he spoke, then met his eyes with hers. "I've never felt what I feel when I'm with you before." She swallowed. "I don't want it to end here. I don't want to wonder-"

The movement of his head tilting closer to hers would have been imperceptible to anyone else. But she felt it. And it drew her.

The answering shift brought her to him again and he claimed her mouth once more.


	7. freer feelings

**i want to feel you**

"Help me," she told him, tugging on his shoulder. "I want to feel you."

He nodded, the lack of oxygen going to his brain. He'd tell himself that was what it was. In truth, while they might be a little impaired from oxygen deprivation, what they were doing was stupid. There was a huge chance that they weren't going to die in here. Okay, not that huge, not after this long, but all they were accomplishing with this heavy breathing was using up what air they had and setting themselves up for some pretty solid regrets, if not disciplinary action.

Just as quickly he decided he didn't care. He reached up and behind his neck to release the sealed black strap that secured his body armor. She laughed when he didn't stop there, instead releasing the finely honed zipper that created the suction barrier from his collar bone to the middle of his right side, then unlatched the wide black straps that connected his chestpiece with the armored plate at his back, then repeated the action of unstrapping the silky black tape at his wrists. He stacked plates from his chest and back, then started on the ones lining his arms and then legs the rest of it.

"Good gods," she muttered. "How do you all do that all the time?" Her eyes danced. He could see the glitter of them in the near-blackness.

"This from a woman wearing fourteen layers of clothing," he shot back as he arched up to tug the form-fitting garment over his head, leaving him stripped to the waist.

Some of the guys had taken to wearing undergarments of varying kinds beneath the black base of the white plasteel. As the smile melted from her face and she skimmed her hands down his bare torso he was thankful that the regulation uniform had always been comfortable to him. His breath hitched as her soft fingertips trailed over his heated skin. She felt his chest heave as he held himself up over her. The satisfaction it gave her was older than time. Then she reached up to press her closed lips to the ridge of muscle between his collar bone and the bulge of his finely honed pectoral muscle. His eyes rolled back in his head and he rolled her with him, moving to his side so that he could enjoy the sensations she created even while seeking further contact with her body.

The long hooded tunic was shoved down her shoulders and his hands busied themselves untying the knot holding together the sides of her over-tunic. It and the first impediment were slipped over her wrists and left to the mercies of the hard rock floor of the cave. He slipped his hands beneath the hem of the thin fabric of her long-sleeved undertunic, an almost sheer mesh that made him think of evening gowns and fairy wings. Her skin was warm beneath it. The sensation of the filmy material gathering at his wrists and his palms sliding over the body-warmed combed cotton of what she wore beneath it coaxed another low moan from his throat.

"Rex," she breathed, moving against him. He rolled again, trapping her legs beneath his as he drew it over her head. Then his mouth fastened on hers again. She pulled him closer - - pulled him down to cover her completely - - and his body responded by going insane.

His mouth became frantic on hers, then moved to lave at her neck and earlobe and shoulder. The thin straps of her tank teased at him. As did the almost-nothing barrier between his body and hers. It was just enough to send his body into sensory overload. And again, once more, his hand moved to her waist, skimmed up beneath the garment, and worked to remove her clothes.

"Tell me to stop," he panted - - begged - - into her ear. His body was hard and heavy over hers. Perfect. She'd given in to things she'd promised to avoid - - attachments and passion and emotion. But she wouldn't stop now. Not when she had him like this. Let tomorrow be for regrets and responsibilities. If there was a tomorrow. Today she would feed her desire as far as this man would let her.

"I can't," she told him, almost a sob. She clutched at him, dragging him down to her. Her hands coursed over his skin, her arms wrapped around his back. Higher, around his neck.

And he gave himself over and let himself make love to a woman. A woman no man had a right to touch - - and certainly not one who was hardly a man.

It was a mystery of discovery. They rolled, untutored in their passion, but ripe with it. The light of the lantern left shadowed patterns on their bodies. And when he finally breached her, when his body arched into hers and filled it, the feeling was of completion instead of guilt. He slowed, wanting this moment to last. Wanting it to be enough to stretch on for all eternity if that's what they had left. And to fill the hours if that was the way fate swung.

Afterward, as their pulses slowed and the air in the cavern cooled their sweaty bodies, he pulled her close against him. She toyed with the small pucker of a scar - - one from training with the fumnug sticks when he was still on Kamino - - over his left nipple. He drew his hand over and over through her hair, combing out the sweaty knots his lust for her had created.

And when she shivered he wrapped her in her cloak and drew her closer.

And fired the flames again.

This time when they were spent he frowned. "It's getting cooler," he told her huskily. "Better take the time to layer on all that nonsense again before we lose the light."

She reached out to smack him lightly against the shoulder. As she sat to pull on her tall boots he lifted the masses of her hair to press a kiss to the back of her neck. "What am I going to do with you now?" he asked.

She smiled back at him and shook her head. Now that they'd separated it was harder to fight the sinking sensation of futility. She watched him tug his uniform back in place. Watched him adjust the straps and zippers and seals that made the garment waterproof and airtight and damn near indestructible. And the vows she'd broken weighed on her.

"The air doesn't seem to be getting any staler," he decided.

She nodded. "Enough coming through the chinks in the boulders?" she offered.

He frowned and shook his head. "We tried out. We tried down." He let his voice trail off as his head tilted to try to take in the near-fathomless space of the chamber. He gauged the space and picked up the glow rod, weighing it in his hand.

"You've got to be kidding me," she told him, deadpan, rising to stand beside him.

She watched, mute, as Rex tossed it up. End over end it flipped, revealing nothing but more yawning black space far above them before returning to his hand. She watched him frown and hang it onto a hook on his belt. He removed his glove again and wet his finger, stretching his arm up over his head. Still contemplative he moved a few paces each way.

"Got it," he grinned at her at last. It was a feral grin. A warrior's victory.

Her liquid cable sunk into something solid when it was launched.

"Do we want to run the lantern up there?" she asked. Climbing up into an abyss of darkness didn't seem like much more of a plan than climbing down into one.

He shook his head and put his weight on the cable, pulling hard. "Give me my bucket," he ordered her, gesturing impatiently with his fingertips for his buy'ce.

Afir rolled her eyes and did as commanded. She'd remind him of who was in charge if he didn't kill himself trying to get them out. Again, just as he'd done in the minutes and hours immediately following the collapse, he adjusted the beam and made a careful survey of their little piece of hell. She didn't know enough about the heads-up display in the helmet to guess how accurately he'd be able to scan the cavern's yawning upper space.

A grunt signaled his completion of the task. He dimmed the spotlight and took off the helmet to look at her, tugging on the pouch in her belt where she kept her cable launcher. There was an easiness, an intimacy, about the gesture that made her want to weep.

"How many of these things to you have?" he asked.

Her eyebrows flew up. "Just the one," she answered. They'd already done personal inventories with an eye toward getting out.

"Then we'll be creative with it." He reached for the cable with one hand, for her with the other. "Come on..." In just a few effective twists and turns he'd created a harness of sorts for both of them out of his rappel line.

They let the glide take them up slowly. "Let me know if you sense the anything approaching," he warned after a while. She took the opportunity to reach one hand up a little higher on the cable so that she would have plenty of warning.

"Kriff," he swore when his body slapped into the arching wall anyway. They'd apparently hit a ridge sticking out. After bouncing around and off of it for a while Rex reached out with his own arm to steer them up and away from it. "Here," he said after what seemed like an eternity of cursing and scraping. The beam from his helmet's lantern, dimming as it lost power, swept out over the ledge. He spun so that she could feel the solid stone at her back. "Test it first - - I've got you," he told her. One arm stayed linked on the cable. The other held tightly onto her waist. Afir gingerly toed her way onto the outcropping.

"I've got it," she whispered.

"On three," he told her. "Ready?"

"Three," she called. She flung her body weight onto the ledge, coming to rest on her hands and knees. From the strain of the cord around her waist she decided that Rex was very probably teetering pretty close to the edge himself.

"Anchor yourself to something," he ordered her. "I'm too heavy."

She snorted. It wasn't the most ladylike of sounds and yet she still managed to make it regal and superior. And the clone captain found himself hovering midair, feet nowhere near touching anything, line above him slack. It was disconcerting.

"I guess I asked for that, didn't I?"

With a wry smile she brought him down to stand beside her on the ledge, then got up and dusted off her knees. "Step carefully. There's something all over the floor. I'm hoping it's twigs from a nest of some sort, but I'm not thinking it any further through than that." Rex heard the slight rushing noise as she reeled in her cable.

Then he was still, listening and watching. He had the night vision activated in his HUD. She would rely on the force. This was why they spent so much time blindfolded at the temple.

"Feel that?" he asked quietly.

She stilled her mind and body and sought his direction with the force. There was no echo of darkness that she could pick up. If Obi-Wan was near she couldn't sense him for once. And she thought she'd pick up the life force of anything else in the area. She shook her head.

"Above. A sense of space. Openness."

"Yeah. A yawning cavern in an unending mountain."

She felt more than saw him shake his head and hiss silent laughter. Then he'd relaunched her liquid cable so that they swung out from the ledge and were making their way up again.

And at some point she realized that she could actually see his outline - - a black silhouette against a background that was just barely black. With an eerie blue glow from the t-slit in his visor. Looking up she caught the shape of an opening above them. In the dark it was hard to tell if it was hundreds of feet above and fairly large or six feet up and tiny as hell, but it was there.

Rex didn't so much feel her reach out with the force as much he sensed her gathering herself in; it distanced her from him a bit. But he picked up on her excitement immediately. His helmet registered the rise in her body temp as her heartrate suddenly bumped up. The hand at her waist felt her body jerk, surprised and tense. And whatever was man inside of him felt the woman next to him smile broadly.

"Okay. You get huge points for being right," she told him.

He tried not to be smug. It only went so far. "Any time, Master Jedi," he promised her.


	8. negotiator

**master negotiator**

It wasn't until they'd managed the feat of actually hitting the opening just right that it dawned on Afir just what she'd done in that cavern. She couldn't go back to treating Rex like someone who hadn't touched her soul. And that had nothing to do with his saving her life.

"Step lightly," he whispered to her, seeking something in the dark.

She nodded and reached out with the force to see what he feared. An echo of darkness sprang back, something menacing approaching.

"Have you met Ventress yet?" she asked him.

"Red lightsabers, my hairstyle, has it in for General Skywalker?"

"Got it in one," she muttered as she looked up at the inky sky. No light. No moon. Just a few smatterings of small, distant stars.

"I owe her a bit of payback," he told her, taking off his helmet so that he could look her in the eye.

She met his stare and lifted her chin. "You'll leave it to me," she ordered. "She's a Sith. Or not quite a Sith, but just as deadly. You are to her what droids are to us."

Rex snorted and put his helmet back on. "Not quite that useless, I hope."

"Meaningless," Afir corrected him, a restraining hand going to his arm. "Soulless. Bloodless. Something to be cut down on the way to a larger goal."  
He swallowed, although the emotion he choked back was hidden behind the void of his facepiece. He didn't have time to respond before that voice cut through his armor to chill his blood.

"Well put, Jedi," Ventress told them. She force leapt to their side, lightsabers still on her belt.

Afir nodded. "What business do you have on this planet?" she asked, bowing.

Rex gaped at her as he reached for his blaster.

Only to find the damn thing ripped from his grasp and sent flying toward the hole they'd just crawled out of.

Ventress bared her teeth. "Going to talk me to death?" she asked. "Or, no, could it be that I've rounded up Master Yoda's negotiator?" Her question was cruelly voiced. "There are but a few jedi who stomach not the fight. Who choose not to use their lightsabers. No matter. That will only make my job easier."

Afir lifted an eyebrow even as she lifted her hand to stop Rex from charging. "There's a difference between those who relish warfare for the sake of warfare and those who use their weapons in defense of the weak and for the greater good."

Ventress's thin laugh cut the air. "So you do not relish using your lightsaber? Fine then, you can feel mine just the same as I have no such compunction."

"I don't believe that was an accusation _ever_ made," Rex hissed.

Afir rolled her eyes at him even as she threw up her hands to send Ventress skidding across the dewy grass.

The pale, woman-like figure picked herself up and stood at ready, glowering at the human before her. "I have been trained by Count Dooku and Narek Ag."

"And I knew Narek. I remember his goodness and his kindness and his humor and his sense of fair play from my own childhood. Think you that he would approve this career choice for you?" Afir asked softly. "Give this up, Ventress, for the universe is too huge to pay the price for one death and in blaming the jedi you blame the wrong entity."

"The jedi did nothing!" the dark jedi swore. She charged at Afir, both lightsabers out and ready. Afir simply waited, biding her time, then leapt over her opponent.

"If you think that's true then you're mistaken," Afir told her. The stuck-up mien was in place. The finely wrought nose was held high, the delicate chin jutted out. "If that is what has driven you the dark side then see the error of your ways and repent. I was a small child when Narek disappeared. And I know how the council at least fretted for him. We searched - - they did. Narek's mission was to Gundi Maei. Until you appeared no one even knew that he'd ever stepped foot on Rattatak. Why did none of your people get word to us that one of our own was stranded? Why was no appeal made to the Senate on behalf of those in that moon system?" Afir's voice held tears. The questions were true from her heart. The man they discussed had obviously been dear to her. Her distress was real.

Ventress's head hung down. Hatred fired her eyes. "Lies," she hissed. "Drivel thrown to you by your leaders."

Afir simply shook her head. "Come with me to the temple and question them yourself. Read the truth in their eyes. See our archives and know the mission that Narek was on when he came to be on your world. Will you not share with us the lessons he taught you? Will you not fill in the empty pages of his life for us so that we may honor him and know his full story and pass it down with his legend?" she asked.

Rex's eyes were wide and he jerked from watching the crouched tiger to stare at Afir in amazement.

Ventress sprang. "A trap! More lies! Webs spun by the treacherous!"

With effort Afir stopped the maddened forward motion, picked up the woman using nothing more than the force flowing through her - - directed by her sweet, soft hands - - and slammed the pale visage to the ground twenty feet away. Rex could do no more than watch. She'd fared better than any he'd ever seen against this warrior and she'd yet to draw sword or blaster.

Ventress hissed, groaned, and jumped to her feet again.

"Assaj, please," Afir begged in a soft, tearful whisper. "We could be as sisters. The force is strong in you even now. The good that Narek saw and the training he gave you is _there._ Why do you turn from it? Why do you side with one who will not even show you all of his ways? What sense is there in this?"  
Ventress ignored the plea and charged again.

This time at the last instant Afir drew her own blade and it held the two red lasers at bay. Rex hated that red glow so close to her pretty face. There seemed little he could do about it, though, without getting his own body uselessly hacked off. He'd let his girl have her go, then step in. Although the hell of it was, she seemed as determined to bring the villainess home with them as to defeat her.

"Feel my power," Ventress told the other woman. "This is what the jedi denied me. And now I am stronger for it."

"You are a slave to your anger, Ventress," Afir corrected with a head shake. "A pawn of those feeding their power with hate. Better to be your own woman, your own master, and not taste that dark rush than to taste it and lust after ever more."

Rex's heart stopped as she slipped one foot behind her, letting the blades down closer to her precious face, her tender body. Then she moved her wieght back, stepping clear of the other woman and dropping her own blade. In too small a span of time to recognize seconds or milliseconds or anything else - - in the same motion, the same movement - - she picked up Ventress and hurled her into the pit from which they'd just come.

He stood there, stunned, as she thoughtfully watched the chasm from which Ventress's bloodcurdling scream now echoed.

"It's for the best," he told her finally, moving toward her. "She's no better than that Dooku and wasn't likely to change." He sought to comfort her.

"She still might," Afir told him, tightening her lips. "She knows now - - I can be restful about that at least - - she knows now that Narek meant something to someone other than herself. The seed's been planted and she may yet see the error of her ways. If nothing else she may decide to storm the temple to see what we've documented, even if she's still convinced it's lies." She looked at him again and it was truly her that saw him. "Come, now," she said briskly. "I'll warn them that she might be coming so that there are no surprises and they can come up with a protection of sorts for the younglings."

Rex glanced at confusion toward the hole in the mountain.

Afir saw and laughed. "Did you think I'd sent her to her death? She'll be able to use the force to catch herself on one of the ledges, to slow her fall. With luck she'll get some small injury for my pains, but she'll be crawling out of there far too soon to suit far too many on our side."

"I've seen you strike first and ask questions later many a time. I've seen both General Kenobi and General Skywalker go toe to toe with her with those laser swords of yours. Why did you wait so long?"

"I'm not the swordsman Obi-Wan is. I'm not the offensive tactician Anakin is. And, despite her pain and misdirection, she might have been raised in the temple as my sister. What right have I to strike her down simply because of the life choices she's made? I deny her the right to strike down innocents because of her own whims, why would I in turn do otherwise?"

"Think her innocent do you?"

She turned again from her quest to seek the shelter of the trees and a good vantage point to radio the command base. "Think you that she is simply evil?" she shook her head. "I do not deny that pure evil exists. But that being was once something good that was twisted. She is not innocent in that. And having been trained as a jedi she should have dealt with her pain and loss as we do. But I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for what she is. Her race is long-lived. Three-hundred years or more do most of them live. Does she not now seem still so young and seeking to you?"

"Afir," he told her, reaching out to trail his gloved fingers over a lock of hair. "You are too good."

She smiled at him. At him. Into his heart. Wonderingly.

The moment snapped and crackled between them. It wasn't the physical they'd experienced in the cave, although Rex could easily be moved in that direction. It was a metaphysical.

"When this is over will you be free?" she asked him.

"When this is over?" He shook his head. He had doubts about the war ending. And the odds of his living through it were small. He was a captain because he'd lived through so many campaigns. There weren't all that many that did.

Afir swallowed. "Jedi are disallowed attachments," she told him.

"You aren't attached to General Kenobi?" he asked in disbelief.

"It's a grey area," she half-shrugged. "I love him. He is my brother, closer than a twin almost, and yet if he is to join the force I will mourn him and honor his death and keep to my ways. As would he."

Rex nodded. He had no fucking clue what she was talking about. "And me?"

"Less grey. Physical attachments are pretty well prohibited. And I want more than your proximity."

_Proximity_, she was calling it.

"I want your heart and your soul and for you to think about me when you wake up and when you sleep and when you're tired and when you're happy and-"

He stopped her mouth with a kiss. "Know this, then, Afir Kuay Li'in," he told her. His eyes bore into hers, his face was only a breath away. His voice was fierce. "Not a day will go by when I will not treasure you. I have to lead my men. It's who I am. But know that in serving them I am serving you. When this is over I'll find a way to be with you, if you want. And keep yourself well. For something in me is whole with you and I would not see it shattered before I'd lived long and hard by your side."

Her eyelids fluttered down and her lips pressed together.

"I ask no promise from you, Afir," he whispered. "I'm not asking you to give up your vows. I only want you to know what is in me for you."

She nodded. Then she threw her arms around him and sobbed. "My heart is for you as well and I already mourn leaving this night behind. If only things were not as they are," she cried. "I want too much. I have a duty and a desire to serve the jedi and yet I want very badly to stay beside you and forget the things that brought us here."

"Shush, sweet one," he told her. "Wait until later to mourn. We are both of us still fine and we'll finish this war with the Seps before dreading anything else. Secret I'll be about tonight. But know every time your heart beats that I love you. I'll never be with anyone else. This is only you. Do you understand me?"

He drew her chin up so that she could see his eyes.

"Be careful," she whispered.

He nodded as he pressed his lips to hers again. He wanted to drink her in, to infuse in her a belief that it would work out in the end.

On a sigh she laid her head on his shoulder, her fingertips trailing back and forth just where his neck met his uniform. He was trying not to purr.

"If something happened to you I do not know if I could continue without mourning more deeply than I should," she told him. His arms tightened around her.

"I'll be even more careful than normal."

"No you won't," she laughed. "You'll be at the forefront like always. And I love you for risking yourself over your men."

"And you'll be letting me take the risks from here on out," he ordered.

"Whatever, Captain."

He laughed.

Someday she'd tell him about her father's love affair with Tahl. About Obi-Wan and what she suspected had passed between him and Siri Tachi to rend their hearts and their friendship. As they lay atop a thick canvas cover, hidden away in a locked room onboard a ship bound for Coruscant she would share the secrets entrusted her by other hearts. And she would mourn that she couldn't be freer with her own affection for him. Couldn't stand and make vows of her own deep and everlasting joining with him.

And, over and over and over, she'd listen to reports of what Anakin's troops were doing, what losses they'd suffered, and have to hide her fear and anxiety until she got word that he was safe and whole and on his way to some other front to do it again.

And she felt for Anakin and Padme. For she knew there was something deeper there than friendship. And she felt for Obi-Wan and Siri, for she knew now what they'd gone through for years now - - and denying themselves any comfort at all from each other all the while. She wished she had that strength. But she knew, even as they parted that first time, she knew that she would horde every secret moment with him - - saving up memories just in case what probably would happen did in fact happen. And she was left alone.


	9. self-recriminations

**self-recriminations**

When the mission on Orto Plutonia began to backslide into the nightmare territory Obi-Wan found himself giving in to the urge to find some comfort. He hated finding bodies. Wars wracked 'em up, but they'd never be something he would be comfortable with. Not even in the knowledge that each physical remnant was only a shell and that the soul had departed could he find peace. So, on this world where even death was frozen, he found a quiet corner in the main hangar, sat down on a crate, and removed one heavy glove. He pulled down the warm covering of his hood and reached into a pouch on his belt.

"What's that, general?" one of the new guys asked him. He didn't even know the guy's nickname yet.

"It's the general's bag of tokens," one of Anakin's original troopers replied. "His talismans, as you would."

Obi-Wan smiled tightly and absently noted that the man's accent was thicker than his squadmates'. He'd pull the thought out to ponder over in the dark hours of the night. For now he simply unfolded the worn-soft leather scrap that held his few treasures.

"Jedi aren't allowed attachments," Rex said softly near him. "No belongings other than what gear they need and their own self-build laser swords. They've no treasure troves, no houses full of belongings, and less kit than us. We actually probably have more as we've each got a locker full of mementos and souvenirs back on Triple Zero. They've got the shirts on their backs, sometimes one more, and that's about it. Everything they've got is in a pouch on their belts. Even the creds they spend get issued at the onset of each mission. They're like us, brothers. In more ways than anyone ever imagined."

The blue-skinned senator cocked her head and smiled as she examined the things a grown man in a minimalist order would keep forever. A pale grey rock. One lump of an almost translucent material. A piece of flimsi often folded and refolded, obviously far older than the man himself. A small mechanical part of some machine's inner workings. And, in the palm of his hand, a lock of braided hair tied into a coin-sized circle.

"A lover's reminder?" she asked, her voice holding her amusement.

Obi-Wan smiled gently and shook his head. He held the dark ringlet to his face and inhaled the scent of spicy florals and gentle herbs.

"A reminder, yes. And a woman's gift, yes. But she's not a lover. More than a friend, more like the other part of my soul."

A trooper snorted.

The jedi just shrugged. "You don't have to believe me." He turned back to the watching woman, his hand warming the braid in his fist again. "We grew up much like brother and sister and are closer even than true twins or married couples or any other bond I've ever seen or heard of or imagined. She is..."

The dark blue lips parted in a grin. "Your sanity and salvation?"

"Wholesomeness," Obi-Wan decided. "Everything good in the galaxy, everything that makes you want to be good and then be better."

The red-haired man opened his palm and offered the warm scent to the nearest trooper. The man popped the seal on his helmet and bent his face to inhale the perfume of clean, pure, intoxicating womanhood.

"Master Afir Kuay Li'in would choose other words to describe herself," Rex commented as the younger-looking clone sighed.

Obi-Wan nodded. "I daresay she would." He turned to the woman beside him. "She's my best friend and we grew up together, sharing even a sickbed in our youth and holobooks and study guides and everything the other experiences. So I forget that she is a woman with a woman's vanities. She'd like to hear herself described as strong and brave and-"

"Beautiful, ma'am," another trooper interrupted. "No offense, intended, General Kenobi, sir. But she is. She's good and all that, too, but..."

Rex nodded. "She is beautiful. Inside, out, and all the way through."

"She's the one who argues for clones rights, right, sir?" one of the newcomers asked in the privacy of his bucket's link. Several of his brothers nodded.

Obi-Wan grinned. "Beautiful she is. Pure and simple and easy. Like warm sand beneath bare feet. Or cool breezes on grasslands. Or a newly budded flower. A woodland creature's newborn. Something strong, but something that makes you want to protect."

Forks shook his head. "She's a beautiful woman, Senator," he said. "Period. Long hair, pretty face, dainty hands, and a good, curvy shape on her. And she forgets that she's not like the rest of us. She wants peace, but she wants to be a warrior because that's what we need. She's that kind of woman. The kind that wants to be what you need her to be at that moment."

The general laughed at his description.

"And she gave you this token to remind you of herself? I think you're wrong, General," the senator declared. "I think this woman does love you."

He nodded. "That she does, although not the way you mean. Trust me, Senator. I've known her all my life. All of hers. We each have our secrets. Those we hold near to ourselves despite vows to forgo attachments. She is one of mine and I am hers. More deeply than the gravity that holds the universe together. More profoundly than the truths of any religion. More binding than any vow or promise or mandate. But her desires are not what you would make of them. She's given similar tokens to others of our group. To Bant and Gavin and Tru Veld. We left her at the temple to continue training with our individual masters. She was apprenticed to the whole of the council and thus found herself wading deeper into diplomacy and grander views of the happenings in our world. But she does it with such sweetness that all of us find ourselves turning to her in our weakness. So, decades later, we each still beg new locks of hair when ours deteriorates or becomes mucked up. This war seems to rob the goodness from even her scent," he added as he rewrapped the items he always carried. They were as vital to him as the nutricubes, the water purifiers, the liquid cable, and the rebreather in his stores.

Anakin's men chuckled softly. Rex heard them and was grateful his bucket hid his face and his thoughts.

He could see the senator still didn't believe the man in front of her pulling his hood back over his head, up over his beard. He wasn't about to get Afir in trouble by offering proof of the man's words. And he thought about Forks's description. A woman that wants to be what you need her to be at that moment. Lover, friend, comforter or defender. Yes, he agreed completely. And she was his...she offered herself against all rules and regulations and loved him, a man who was not really all the way a man.

He was going to get a letter off to her soon thanking her for all that she was to him and reminding her that he appreciated all the facets of her being in his life.


	10. questions

**lingering questions**

Obi-Wan shut down the link to the council and waited in a corridor of the cold, antiseptically white innards of the ship.

As expected, his link beeped quietly to announce another caller.

"I'll see you shortly, Master," Anakin told him quietly. Obi-Wan was already nodding his dismissal.

"It was bad?" Afir asked him without preamble.

He nodded, silent.

She, too, let the silence continue. It was a moment of commune, with no comfort to be had. This mission had been a bad one. From the get-go it had been one of little hope. The outpost had either disappeared or come to some other bad end. The kit was too good to simply stop transmitting, the men too good not to be able to come up with some plan over the past two weeks. So even at its outset it was not to be easy.

Finding dead men never was.

Finally he spoke, his chest heaving with the emotion he struggled to clamp down.

"I followed an order I should not have obeyed."

Afir was quiet. She simply waited, sharing his grief and his pain and his rage. Inside she wondered if she was to lose another friend. Too many jedi were finding their mandates too counter-productive to continue. They were slipping away, slowly leaving an order whose leadership was left stuck between a growing darkness and a shadowy menace.

"The council's mandate?" she asked finally.

He shook his head. "I made contact with an intelligent and peaceful people who only wanted their planet left alone. Not separatists, not republicans. Just a quiet, simple people making a good life on a cold, hard moon." Afir watched him close his eyes. "Greed does this to us," he admitted. "You are right about that. You always have been. One man wants more, but that more has to come from somewhere else. So one man is left without. In this case the supreme ruler of a neighboring planet claimed dominion over the ice people. The Senator could do nothing to override him. He kicked us out - - saying that as a satellite of his planet this particular moon was his control and not a galactic republic affair."

"Which takes blame off of your shoulders, Obi-Wan. You are a reasonable, eloquent man. If you couldn't make peace it wasn't the will of the force."

"Six hours, Afir. Six hours would have made the difference. The Senator got hold of her Secretariat and he gave her approval to shut down the hostilities. But we'd lost so many by then. It wasn't until we were on the transport on our way back that I realized I should have just pulled our men and materials out. I'd already promised to abandon our base there, so it wasn't like I had to stay for that reason. If the Supreme Ruler wanted a war he could have come back any time he wanted with his machines and his blasters and the ice people could have rolled over them."

"To what end, Obi-Wan?"

"We lost fifteen men. Plus the original squad stationed at the base. I had to look men in the eye knowing that I was the one who gave the order to accompany the Supreme Ruler."

"Peace exists now."

"But a people who were once isolated and content with it are now under discussion. How long until some scientist decides to study them? Before they become anthropological subjects and their world is invaded again? Who makes these decisions?"

"You did the best you could in a quickly evolving situation-"

"You mean quickly deteriorating. Humanity has little humanity left in it. If this war continues we'll see a complete breakdown."

"I don't believe that, Obi-Wan," she argued honestly. "People harbor goodness. I pray each day for the war to be over, for our paths to become clearer and brighter again. But each opportunity for the dark side to roll over us is an opportunity for the force to speak clearly. And so often it does. Your troops didn't hesitate to follow your orders. Anakin didn't cause trouble or sow malcontent. A war which could have gone on for months or even years was ended in an afternoon. You ended a war the same day it broke out. There's balance somewhere, Obi-Wan. We just have to dig a little deeper and reach out to embrace it."

Obi-Wan watched her carefully as she spoke. He doubted she knew that she balanced the optimism and hope in her words with tears streaking down her cheeks. She often cried now. Her peace and serenity were slowly being eroded until she couldn't control the emotion swirling inside her.

He saw the cracks in her composure and sought to protect her. He knew that several members of the council saw the pressure she was under as well. They, too, loved her and wouldn't say anything to upset her further, but everyone noticed and took stock.

"I am grateful to have such a friend as you," Obi-Wan said carefully. "I shouldn't lay my burdens on your shoulders. I can almost predict what you're going to say, but I need to hear the sound of your voice. I need the truth in your eyes to make sense of the things in my path."

She smiled at him. "You need a cold muja juice and some warm soup."

He nodded. "That's the truth of it. Soup I might find here, but we're a long way from the muja fruit."

"Go find Anakin. If you're upset, so is he."

Obi-Wan nodded. "I actually felt little turmoil from my former apprentice during this mission. He seems steady as the stars."

Afir's expression almost flickered. Obi-Wan wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been watching for it. Anakin frightened Afir in ways he would never understand. Sometimes he agreed with her assessments and sometimes he defended the younger man. And sometimes - - like this moment - - he was caught off-guard. He'd meant the words as a complement to the jedi. Now he heard them, aligned them with his qualms about the mission, and wondered - - as Afir obviously did - - why a jedi strong in the force would be calm and confident in the face of such inequity.

To his friend's credit she didn't point this out.

"I hope you, too, find your equilibrium, dear Obi-Wan. May the force be with you."

He nodded. "May the force be with you."


	11. coming to terms

**coming to terms**

The ice moon of Ordo-Plutonia was long behind them when the transport docked with the larger supply and launch vessel.

Rex chose his moment carefully to answer Afir's comm.

"Rex here," he grunted.

Her beloved, much-worn face filled his vision. He'd felt her - - felt the nudges in the force that told him she was with him. Still he hurt and hurt badly.

Afir didn't say anything at first. She simply took in the fact that he appeared whole and well. As well as could be imagined. She'd heard the numbers already but had chosen not to call him. He wouldn't have been able to take the call anyway, not on one of the larties with everyone around and aware. Not while he'd sat among his brothers, mourning their dead.

The woman before him simply tightened her lips and tried at a smile. While shaking her head.

"I felt you," he told her shortly. He wasn't sure how to handle this one. And knowing that she'd probably be able to sense his mingled emotions put his guard up.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. She'd already heard Obi-Wan's frustrations in his ongoing sitreps. She'd felt his anger and his fear and his sense of loss as the force rocked over the loss of innocents. These troopers and the natives to the moon upon which they'd landed had been his to save and he'd been powerless to do so. Afir imagined her lover would have taken it just as hard as her best friend.

"No, Afir," he sighed. "I want to forget it. I've just stepped off a transport and my bones are still frozen and what I really want to do is go soak in the refreshers for a good long while."

"Okay...that's fine, then, Rex. I'll-"

He wasn't finished. Even as he opened the vents to his emotions he knew he should rein himself back in.

"That's what I _want_ to do. But before then I've got to see to the reconditioning of some of our artillery pieces, make certain the men are on an even keel, then go log the numbers of the ones we lost. For appropriations. So that somebody somewhere can decide that the appropriate number of lost men's worth of munitions and gear need not be ordered sometime down the line. I have real, tangible work to do. I'll deal with you later."

She nodded quickly and shut down the link before he could reel himself back in. She hadn't even said anything. No response, no farewell, no argument or agreement.

He felt like an ass.

Less than an hour later he commed her back. She was sitting in an open window on a beautiful planet with pale green grass and butterflies the size of her palms. A warm, wet breeze blew her hair and mingled with the remnants of the tears that had fallen down her cheeks.

Those passing on the street below saw her and thought her beautiful. The man who called her now thought so as well.

The wavering blue image hid the signs of the weeping. As the holo she saw hid the paleness of his cheeks and the stiffness with which he held his shoulder.

"Anakin said that you took a hit," she told him without preamble.

"I'm fine."

"You've seen to your duties, then - - your men and your gear and your staffing roster? You've had your shower? Something to eat?"

He nodded. "I'll get some grub in a minute. I needed to apologize to you."

She shook her head. "It's fine, Rex. I called because I couldn't control the impulse. Because I hated the idea of you suffering alone and thought I could comfort you. I forgot that you've been comforting yourselves and each other for a lot longer. That you have your routines and your rituals. It's fine. It's not about me."

He actually reached out, then dropped his hand. He wanted to touch her. Her cheeks were like soft fire - - warm and vibrant and _alive._

"I hurt you. I was on a timed fuse and you got caught in the blast."

"It's okay," she told him. "We all need time and space to recharge and I invaded yours. We'll learn to work it out."

"I wouldn't have hurt you for anything in the world, Afir Kuay Li-in. I am sorry for it."

She laughed and glanced away from the face she adored. Her eyes were sad above her smile when she looked back at him. "I was concerned for you because I knew how badly shaken the mission left Obi-Wan. He does not give in easily to his frustrations and yet the rawness of the anger and the fearfulness and the helplessness was there in him. When I reached out to you I felt nothing. I knew that you must live still, but there was a void. So I worried."

"And I slapped at you."

"It was fine. I should have realized that you're so much more prepared to deal with the battle itself than the jedi are. I should have realized that your moment would come when the adrenaline passed and the tasks were completed. I was selfish, too. I cost you a team too, once," her conscience still wrenched at the idea of his brethren buried beneath that cave-in, "and my heart aches for you to have lost another so needlessly."

He nodded. "I wish now that I had suggested that since the jedi and hence the galactic republic were not involved that perhaps using GAR resources for an 'internal' affair was inappropriate. But I was asked by your master to protect the planet's liege."

She nodded. "Obi-Wan expressed the same regret. Your lives are not meaningless to him," she reminded him.

He nodded. "If you were here-"

"If I'd been there you'd still have needed to see to your men and deal with the personal effects of the ones who fell and then performed your own cleansing."

Rex's head shook gently. "I like to think that you would have made a difference. My men regroup more readily when you're there to pet them and fret over them. They're going to be acting like those damn RCs and NULLs soon."

She smiled, glad their first tiff was over. Sad for him. For all the empty racks tonight.

"I love you," he whispered. "Right or wrong. I love you."

"I love you, too. And as it makes me stronger and the world clearer I choose to see it as right. Just not acceptable, somehow."

He nodded.

"Go eat. Something warm and gooey. Soup or noodles. Something to warm you from the inside."

"You do that, Afir. You warm me and make me alive when everything inside me wants to go droid...cold and dead and safe."

"Be careful. Do what you have to, but be careful about the doing."

His grin was genuine. "Of course, love. I'll see you soon."


	12. searchingmistakes

**reaching for the lost**

"Anakin," Afir's voice was the epitome of restrained frustration. Her wavering blue hologram shone next to that of Master Kenobi. "There are other issues that need to be pursued in your quadrant. What is the hold-up there?"

"We still haven't found R2," he told her, appealing to her sense of sentimentality. It didn't work.

"Is he the only astromech droid on your ship?" Exasperation shone through in every syllable.

"No, Master Kuay-Li'in."

"Then do a couple more sweeps and then get out of there!" she told him before blanking out. His own master stood there still, regarding his image sadly.

"Anakin-" the older man began gently.

"I've got it under control," Anakin interrupted. Kenobi's comlink beeped. They both knew who it would be. "You'd better answer her. I'll be in touch," Anakin told the older man.

After Obi-Wan had ended his connection with Anakin he opened the link with his best friend.

"Obi-Wan!" she started.

He shook his head. "He's an adult, Afir. And he had his reasons."

"He usually does!" she objected. "Now, how often do those reasons usually coincide with the mandates set down by the council and the general code and his mission specifically?"

She had him there. "I'm grateful you told him to take a couple more passes around the area. I do hope we find that little guy. He's been with us a very long time and has made himself useful in a thousand different situations. I can't imagine you'd feel the same way, but he's more than just a droid. He's damn near a partner to us," Kenobi explained.

Afir growled. "Keep an eye on him. I'm going on to Bes Tha. I expect him there to extract me."

"You can count on Anakin," Kenobi told her. He chuckled. "If nothing else he knows how much I'd gripe if he lost you," he reassured her.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." The connection ended. Afir walked back toward the troops readying ships in the hold. She wiped her sweaty palms on her trouser pants and wished she'd opted for the short, easy-to-wear native skirt she'd long since given up wearing. She'd feel more comfortable going to her native planet in native garb. But this stop hadn't been scheduled when she'd left the temple. And thirty years of being a jedi had led her to dress like one.

When Afir's comlink sounded she wasn't sure what exactly she expected, but it was one of several not-good scenarios. She was immediately stunned and uplifted when Rex's face appeared in the small box.

"Am I on holo?" he asked in his usual brusque voice.

She shook her head.

"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'd like to tell you over a nice, quiet dinner. Maybe in a park. Or a plush restaurant. Or sitting in front of a vid screen. But, no, it wouldn't help to tell you about it now. And I can't swear I can pinpoint exactly where my angst is as the moment."

"I can tell you where it is. It's centered around that little droid. What's so important about that particular droid that they can't get to tomorrow or the next day or the day after that?" Afir found an empty room, closed the door, and activated the life-size holo display. Rex knew by the quick ripple in his own display that she'd needed the extra comfort of being literally face-to-face. He grabbed a chair, straddled it, and activated his own. If there'd been food on the table in front of him it would almost have been that charming little fantasy she'd created.

"Tomorrow any data he's carrying can have been unloaded by whomever has R2."

"And that's big time?" Rex asked her.

Afir shrugged. She didn't have any proof. She didn't have any reason for suspicion. She had only her innate sense of rightness and a gut feeling. "If I bonded with someone, something, the way Anakin has R2 I'd be hesitant to wipe everything as often as we're supposed to. I've never seen him conduct that chore, no matter what message R2's carried to or from or for any of us. I've never heard him talk about it. And I think he would. He tells Obi-Wan every time he's going to be out of pocket for a while. I just have this sinking feeling that whoever has R2 has a lot more than anyone bargained for."

"Then isn't that worth letting Anakin look for the droid a bit longer?" Rex asked.

Afir shrugged. "Thus the crux of my problem. I can handle Bes Tha alone. I can probably get off alone. But the council laid down these plans for a reason and Anakin's sentimentality is getting in the way of completing the mission according to specs. Either before the fact or after." She crossed her arms and sighed. "If I'd known that this was going to be such a problem I'd have blasted Anakin out of the sky the first time he pissed me off."

"When was that?" Rex asked with a half-smile.

"He was about nine or ten I guess."

Across from her the man's hologram snickered. "We'll be there to back you up. You won't be alone. I promise."

"R2 may be more important."

He nodded seriously. "I'll be there to get you."

She gave in to his protection and nodded, her face visibly relaxing. She knew, just as he did deep inside, that it really wasn't up to either of them. Even if had been Anakin issuing the promise - - or it could have been Mace or Obi-Wan or Yoda - - there just weren't any guarantees anymore.

"You have to go," she said softly.

He nodded. "I do. But I wanted this moment with you."

"Take care of yourself," she told him.

"I will. And you as well." Rex winked as he reached out to shut down the connection.

Two standard days later her comlink buzzed. Slipping away she cupped her hand around it before answering.

"Skywalker here," she heard. "We're on our way."  
She smiled. "Good job, Anakin. I'm glad to hear it. Anything interesting going on?"

"Well," she could hear the grin in the younger man's voice. "I've been given two different assignments since the last time we talked, completed one of them, adjusted one of them to fit my needs, and abandoned one."

Her heart sank. "Oh, no. R2?" She regretted the angry words she'd spoken about the droid. The little astromech touched something inside her, too.

"Nope," Anakin said proudly. "I've got my droid. And the Seps have one less listening station. And I get to tell Obi-Wan 'I told you so,' so everything's all right in the end."

"Phenomenal. When can you be here?"

Anakin's demeanor sobered. She could hear that as well. "I've got to pick up some new people to fill in the gaps my last mission left."

"Oh, Anakin," she cried out softly. "Who?"

Anakin heard the tears threatening in her voice and wondered at her reaction before passing it off as an extension of her typical reaction to the war's casualties. She took each loss more and more personally. Especially as she'd worked with more and more of the troops.

"I've got Stump, Hopper, Fishe, and Rex left," he told her. Out of eleven guys that had gone aboard with the jedi three had come back to rejoin their comrade piloting the Twilight.

Afir swallowed hard. She was so grateful that Rex had been spared - - although now she wondered if she wouldn't feel it if he came to harm - - but still she mourned his teammates. He would need bolstering, too.

"Rex is going to approve the final selections for your team while we're on Kamino," Anakin told her.

Afir rolled her eyes.

Anakin was familiar enough with his master's best friend to anticipate her reaction. "This isn't a surprise, Mast Kuay Li'in," he lectured. "You knew it was coming. You're one of the last hold-outs."

"I know," she whined. Rex, in the background pretending not to listen to the exchange, laughed to himself. "But I thought I'd be the one to pick them out."

"I believe that was Master Yoda's original intention," Anakin reminded her. "You know, when the subject came up three years ago. And every two months after that. You could probably consider this to be an end run." The smile was back in his voice. "You're getting a squad the same way I got a Padawan."

She growled at him. "Watch yourself, young one," she warned.

"Welcome to the big time. Congratulations, General. Anakin out."

"Thank you very much, Ani. Take care of yourselves."


	13. fighting idealism

**fighting idealism**

"You fight like a girl," one of Kenobi's taunted. Since the clone had put up a pretty good fight - - and the trooper from the 505th standing over him was the fourth one he'd taken on that evening - - it probably wasn't a fair jab.

Jedi Master Kayes Rii looked around, waiting to see what was going to happen.

"Kriffing bunch 'a pussies," he jeered, turning around. He jerked his head at his group of buddies. "Guess that's what you get when you take a bunch of Shinies and give 'em over to a _fe-_male je-_di_. They'd rather go home and sing and hold hands with mommy, who's just one step up from a Sep-" The rest of the guys from the 505th were okay with some general smack talk. All of them were. But when it got personal like that?

Nobody was surprised when the asshole's mouthing off was cut short by a pair of hands.

"Yeah?" Tutanna reached out to shove the #1 special. "So why'd it take four of Kenobi's crew to wear him down?" the ranking clone noncom in the 1222nd asked. He asked it as he was stripping off his armor plates.

The guys from Omega and Theda and Yu'ur kind of cringed when they saw Kayes Rii in the crowd with her guys. Hell, of course she'd be there. Where was Kenobi? For that matter, where were any of the two armies' officer corps? Lots of lieutenants down there, but they were exchanging money like everyone else.

"I've got a better idea," Kayes called as she stepped forward. She held her hands palm up at the waist, showing that she was a peaceful negotiator.

"Oh, _no_, _Kay'aliur_," Darman begged. "No, no, no."

"Find out what it's like to fight like a girl."

"What? We gonna settle this with a round of guess which hand has the treat in it? Or you got a sugar tit to pass around?"

She winked at Tu. Tu only lifted an eyebrow and shook his head. He was pretty sure this was a non-starter of an idea. It was one thing when too many troops from too many units got wound up and elected their best hand-to-hand guys to go one-on-one. Getting the generals involved was problematic.

"I'm not gonna hurt him," she promised softly in that lilting voice that carried everywhere. "I'm gonna take off my robe and my belt. See? I'm not even a jedi anymore.

She went one better, taking off the tunic that was almost uniform for the order. Her trim black pants and boots and the form-fitting long-sleeved undergarment emphasized how much smaller than the clones she was - - not just in height, but in sheer bulk.

"I ain't gonna hit no _fe-_male."

"You say that like that again and I'm gonna forget my promise not to do permanent damage."

"You said you wasn't gonna hurt 'im," Tu reminded her.

She shrugged. "It's a big bacta tank. We're not pushing off until midnight tomorrow. He'll have plenty of time to regenerate skin on his _gey'se_."

The commandos on the hillside laughed.

One of them spotted Skywalker's Captain Rex approaching. This guy better kill the little general now - - or she'd better get her licks in fast - - because the shit was about to hit the fan.

"Problem, General?" he asked.

She pointed to the side of the arena. "I've got it covered, Captain, thank you. You just have a seat right there where I can keep an eye on you. That's an order."

Rex looked like he was thinking long and hard about disobeying.

"It isn't a fair fight if you use the force on him, General, ma'am," he called from the squatting position he took in the dust. He pretended to be unconcerned, drawing in the loose red dirt.

"If I was going to do so I would have influenced his small, feeble mind so as to avoid hearing the offending statement in the first place."

"Whatever, General."

"I'm not gonna do it." The bull-sized white job nearly pouted.

"Smart. Smart. Smart choice. Don't let her back you into a corner," Niner urged from their vantage point.

Kayes Rii shrugged. "Your choice. But see, I'm stripped down and ready now, so you're going to feel my fists. And if you're too timid to fight back? Well, that just shows what kind of a man you are. Cause I'm leveling with you. Just hands, my friend. No bars. No bats. No blades."

She waited, her hands loose at her side now.

"Fine," he spat. Reenan figured he was gonna have to find out this guy's name & number and make damn sure he was never the source of any intel they got. He was just too stupid to know when to quit. "Everybody heard that. No tricks. No jedi moves. Nothing but hands and feet and wits."

"Oh, gods," Kayes moaned. "Please don't bring wits into it. You just called my guys a bunch of pussy. You insulted me and every lady in the GAR and now you want to battle wits? Please, please, I promised not to hurt you. So let's not go there."

The guy was pissed now. He couldn't quite follow. Her guys were laughing. Some of Skywalker's guys were laughing. Even the _kriffing_ mercenaries were laughing. At what she'd said _to him_.

He took a stance and she smiled sweetly. A pleased smile. Sunny and bright like she was about to offer some shiny a tour of an improved refresher model.

Kayes took her own stance. She looked like a ballet dancer, graceful lines and sweeping limbs. One foot was extended in front of her, the other braced sideways under her weight. Both hands arched in front of her, one pointed flat out and down, the other turned slightly with the last fingers bent.

"Still doesn't feel right, trading punches with a girl," the monster muttered.

Kayes tilted her pretty little oval-shaped head. Rex nearly snorted. He could see this ending very very badly.

"I can take my licks," she promised. "Find out what kind of a girl they give an army to."

He started to bring up his fists when she bowed to him. He had to bow back. Then she just put up one eyebrow and waited.

He felt her out, coming closer and feinting a couple of times. She let him, leaning into her role. When he moved to jerk her feet out from under her he found her balance was better than he'd thought. She simply kicked out the foot he'd thought carried her weight and caught him on the inner thigh with it.

He grunted and moved to hit her in earnest.

It was just about over with two moves. Few who were watching saw just where she got him, but the left hand shot out, catching the clone somewhere on the abdomen and her right came up, clipping him between his jaw and neck. Then she whirled, placing her dainty leather boot on his neck.

Maddog, as Rex decided to think of him, saw red. Better to stay in control, brother, he thought. Especially when dealing with a pissed-off woman.

Kayes let him wrap both hands around her lower leg - - he fully intended to break the bones in half - - before she hopped. The force of the kick she landed on his shoulder with her other foot send him spinning to his side. It also broke his grip, although unfortunately she was also fast enough to pin down his right hand with the heel of her boot. The men surrounding them all winced. Between rolling him and pinning him his shoulder was now bending the opposite direction.

"Tell me when you've had enough, now," Kayes whispered.

"I think that's enough," Rex told the general. "You want to work out any more temper, you and I'll put on some gloves and throw it into the ring, but there's no need in more of this."

She winked at Tu before stepping off of the guy.

"I'd never be able to hit you, Captain. You're much handsomer by half than the rest of this swill. I wouldn't want to mar your pretty face - - even on accident."

"Good. Because girl or not, I really don't relish taking a beating from a jedi."

She looped her arm around his while he reached out for her robe. She was still smiling when she looked up to see Kenobi standing at the far end of the rink with his arms crossed.

"Master Kenobi," she bowed.

"Kayes Rii," he observed blandly. "Looking for a little diversion?"

She grinned. "My guys took your guys..." she thought about it. "I guess three to one. You really had to expect that I was going to take that last one down."

"He told her troops that they'd been raised to be momma's boys," Rex explained.

"Damn proud of it too, _Kay'aliur_," one of the 1222 troops called.

She smiled. "He said that my guy fights like a girl. This is after Gentu took down three of your 505s," she told him.

Kenobi shook his head. "Still can't back away from a challenge?"

An eyebrow met his response. "When did you?" she shot back. "I think you seek out Ventress now just so that there's a little unpredictability in the exercise. You can beat the crap out of every other person you spar with...well, except Dooku."

Kenobi mimed digging the knife out of his back. "I'll let you prove yourself wrong some other day," he told her. "Now go get cleaned up and leave the children to play, little mother."

"Yes, _Ob'ika_. I hear and obey."

Kenobi waited until she'd gone. "How close was it?"

"Not at all. This guy creamed our guys, then Rhyst - - you know how big Rhyst got - - stepped in and started pounding him before it was really fair. That's the story, anyway. What I got here in time for was the guy mouthing off. He went too far. He deserves reindoctrination. I don't know if I think it's a good idea to let the troops mix all day tomorrow. There will be rematches and grudges and the bacta tanks will be full before we ever let off a shot at a Sep clanker."

Kenobi shook his head. "Where is Cody?"

Rex shrugged. "Tutanna is out there getting his boys rounded up. He was the one who stepped into the ring next."

"For the love of all that is holy!" Kenobi exclaimed.

Rex shrugged. "If he hadn't I would have. Rhyst needed his _gett'se_ handed to him. There's no place for ego in the GAR. Not this far away from replacements."

"Good point. Best forgotten unless there's some other incident?"

"Best forgotten, sir," Rex agreed.

"And Rex? Let's not tell Anakin. I don't want him to think this is an appropriate way to express himself any more than I want Kayes doing it again. Afir would have both our heads mounted on a wall somewhere if something happened to her while she was with us."

"You've got it, sir."


	14. inspection

**inspections**

Anakin was frantic to get to Kamino's moon base - - or what was left of it - - to aid his man. His Captain Rex and Obi-Wan's Commander Cody had been on the way to inspect a remote outpost…one that guarded the entry to the hidden Kamino system. Upon arrival the two clones had been unable to raise the bastion. Further investigation - - and action - - had led to them thwarting an attempt by Separatist droid forces to infiltrate.

When the comlink sounded the waiting jedi all leapt to the viewstation module.

Rex's face was tired, dirt streaked, and cautiously optimistic. Afir's heart was glad.

"How'd inspections go, Captain?" she asked.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Well, it looked pretty good - - what I saw of it." He rocked his clean shaven head back and forth. "Could probably use some work now..."

She laughed and his world felt better. He hurt. His hands burned like hell and his heart was with the guys who had been here on their own while they cursed them and thought to smack down during a routine facility inspection.

"So how'd you do it, Cody old boy?" Obi-Wan asked.

Commander Cody's smile broke his handsome face. How the man had attained so much rank without a mark on his mug was a wonderment to a good many people. "I didn't really have much to do with any of it - - I was just muscle on this jaunt, General Kenobi."

"I find that hard to believe," Obi-Wan countered.

Cody shook his head and grinned again. "It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. And I was right behind him the whole way."

"Yeah," Rex agreed. "You were right behind me going 'This is not going to work,' Commander."

Cody shrugged. "I had your back one way or another…"

"No you didn't!" Afir laughed aloud at the tale of how they'd gotten in, clapping her hands together and then bringing them up to her lips.

Rex smiled warmly, his dark eyes twinkling. "I did and it worked!"

Cody begrudgingly nodded. "They bought it. All we had to do was wave that tinny's head around and they opened the door. But if you could have seen him - - squatting there in front of the security vid while I held up the droid body!"

"Not one of your most dignified moments, huh, Cody?" Obi-Wan asked, stroking his beard in thought. He wasn't watching Cody and Rex's antics so much as looking through them at where Afir was captivated.

"Not so bad for me, General Kenobi. But, man-oh-man, from Rex's point of view..."

Rex probably blushed but it was impossible to tell from the wavery blue images. He certainly looked chagrinned.

"Well, from my point of view you did a spectacular job. All of you," Anakin interrupted.

Obi-Wan watched his best friend cock her head thoughtfully toward his former apprentice and nod approvingly. Anakin caught the gesture as well and stumbled a bit in his declamation. Ahsoka grinned up at him. She didn't know how rarely it was that Anakin and Afir saw eye to eye. If she wasn't disapproving of his actions, he was disapproving of hers.

For now they joined voices in praise, thanksgiving, and finally condolences.

Once they reached the outpost with reinforcements, they sat in the mess and unwound. The men who had survived the attack told tales of those who had not. Afir laughed uproariously. She cried privately, a more and more common occurrence that was beginning to bother her. It seemed as though everything set her off - - even things that amused her led to hysterical laughter and then the eventual sobbing.

It worried Obi-Wan as well. They were working closely, their troops often intermingled now as they took on bigger and bigger targets further and further into the Outer Rim. He watched her and wondered about the strength they'd all expected of her. It had, perhaps, been wrong of the council to force her into leadership of her own army. She'd never been comfortable sending the clones into battle. Now each loss was etched in her soul. Obi-Wan wondered that she could walk under the weight of her sorrows now. Too rarely did she find reason to smile. Too rarely did she seem her old, joyous self. Serious of mien was she now. She'd always had great respect for their craft and their ways, but something was eating away at her very soul now. The war had simply gone on too long and she'd lost too many, he supposed. Someday she would run out of self to give, of hiding places in her mind, and when that happened he thought that she would probably just become one with the force, leaving them grieving the loss of her.

Rex, too, saw the shadows beneath her eyes and the over-brightness in her smile. He'd thought that she'd gotten some bug on Tu'Tapio. Every time she smelled food she lost her appetite. She'd spent most of their time on the island a pale shade of green. Anakin had noticed it and sent her back to the ship. Rex had known she was sick when she'd obeyed instead of arguing. Life and the rages of the war had precluded him going to her, though. He'd had to make due with several short transmissions as their paths led them apart again.


	15. charming

**charming**

"Awww, sir, you've got to be kidding me," one of Rex's clones complained. "We're working with _them_ again?"

Rex wasn't happy about it, either. He liked being the big cheese. Or having bigger cheeses who knew more than he did. How the hell Commander Racho had gotten that much rank was a mystery. It burned more than one clone's ass.

"Trooper! We are here to follow orders, not question them!" he called.

"Aye, sir!" several responded.

"Maybe we can arrange a friendly-fire incident," Rex told them in an undertone. He didn't like the way Racho talked to Afir. It was as simple as that for him. That the rest of the guys didn't like him made him feel a little better. That the officer's corps thought the man was a flawed product made him worry. Constantly.

There wasn't time to do more than tap Rex lightly on the breast plate. He knew what she meant by it.

"All right, guys, hold on. We're going straight to hyperdrive," she warned them. Rex watched her jog up through the main body of the ship, obviously headed for the cockpit. He made his way a bit more slowly.

"Your guys up to this mission, Captain Rex?" Racho asked, halting his progress.

"We've been running the outer rim for a while now, Commander," Rex answered. "We've got it covered."

"Yeah, but you've done it as an army-or under one of the jedi generals. It's going to be a little different this time."

Rex tucked his helmet under his elbow and moved his tongue over his teeth. "Yeah, how's that?" he asked. As far as he was concerned, Racho's men and his men were two separate bodies. He hadn't been ordered to place himself under the other's command and he would be damned if he did so willingly. The guy ran through men like they were coming off an assembly line.

"We're going to be taking orders from a group of _women_."

Rex's eyebrows shot up. "Your general's been a woman for a while now, Commander, sir," he countered. Politely.

His guys hid their snickers well.

"You know that we're picking up more. That's why she's in a hurry. Luminara Unduli and Bariss Offee from Ilum, Siri Tachi, and that Soara Ontana."

"Three jedi knights or master jedi, one padawan," Rex noted. He'd met Unduli. Worked under her. She'd learned fast to be one hard-nosed bad-ass. He had heard of the last one. Apparently Ontana had been kicking in doors and taking names the hard way for a long time. She was one of Afir's favorite younger jedi. Siri Tachi was a good one, too. Rex had seen her when she'd conferred with General Kenobi on Lebroko. The generals trusted her. That was good enough for him. "What's the mission template?"

"Nobody seems to know yet," Racho shrugged. "Something ya'll couldn't handle on your own."

Rex didn't snap the man in half. He didn't hit him. He didn't clench his fists. His mouth didn't even get open before someone else replied for him.

"Actually _I_ requested this op. I have some inside information as a result of being a previous guest at the home we're breaking into and taking for our own," Afir announced. "It seemed rude to leave you guys penned up on Malastare so that I can kick in doors with Rex and his guys."

"Why so many?" Rex asked.

"Men or jedi?" Afir wanted clarification. She was meticulous about everything, not missing a detail. And unless he was the sole focus of her intensity it tended to frustrate him that she refused to just answer and let the discussion lead where it would. She was the outlines and bullet-points type. He was the man with the big picture and plenty of magazines.

"Both." He declared.

Unduli would be bringing her squad of men into the mix. Ontana ran a group of commandos. Tachi had an entire attack squadron. It looked to be a nightmare TOE-wise. At least the clone in charge of Unduli's forces outranked Racho. Rex would trust Whinder with his life - - with Afir's life.

"The palace we're overtaking covers fourteen square hectares of land." Afir popped open a model. "All the way around it are multiple guard shacks and God only knows what booby traps. Soara and I have both been guests at the prison complexes. She endured a stay at the mine facilities, here. I had the dubious honor of being a political prisoner. Here." She pointed to two edifices with their own fencing and guard depots.

"Looks like loads of fun, ma'am," one of Rex's guys called.

She smiled over her shoulder at him. "We're going to have to land on the other side of the planet and make our way in groups to the convergence zones. The attacks have to be coordinated so that the prisoners and workers aren't executed before they can be liberated."

"What are we looking at?" Rex asked. "Is there someone specific we're trying to free?"

Afir met his eyes. "There's a group of clones that disappeared several weeks ago. Nearly the entire 18th Company. Their commander was found dead, along with several others. It looked like they'd been tortured. We need to know why. What did they know that was worth the time and effort it takes to kill strong, healthy men - - slowly? Their op tempo had been nothing special. Their missions no different than hundreds of other missions."

"Our guys?" Rex narrowed his eyes. His head shook back and forth. "I haven't heard anything..."

Racho snorted. "Nobody would, would they? We're clones. Expendable."

"That's not true, Commander," Afir countered. She was going to find a way to get rid of this guy just as soon as she could. She'd already recommended him for promotion to one of the prison worlds or listening outposts. So far no go. Mace Windu had laughed when she threatened to leave him in chunks for the council to put back together. They didn't know how much she meant it. He was a bully. An arrogant, self-centered braggart. Obviously some wires had gotten crossed in his formation and training.

Afir turned to Rex. "Somebody kept it quiet. I don't know who. I don't know why. I am sure somebody had their reasons. I feel just as betrayed as you. If I'd known that they were in there..." She paused, her fists tightening at her waist. "We know they're there now. We've got a plant. We're going to get them out or die trying."

Racho snorted. "Expendable," he muttered.

"Follow me," Afir told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. She had started to choke the shit out of him, but decided that was the dark side clouding her judgment. Rex watched them walk off.

"If you can't be positive in front of your men I will relieve you of command. Until this mission is over your options are 'yes, master,' or 'no, master' and that is _it_. Do I make myself clear? I'm not sure what attitude you think you're projecting, but I'm sick of the comments. I am sorry that you feel your brothers were wronged. I do, too. But that's the way it is. And in case you haven't noticed, there are going to be more jedi than usual working to counter the situation. So shut the hell up and get in line or I'll send you back to Kamino to inspect the shinies' first armor-re-weave attempts. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am, master jedi, ma'am," the slime called sharply. His crisp salute made Rex want to punch him. The look on Afir's face when she turned around said that she wasn't impressed or reassured.


	16. women united

**women united**

Tachi was the first the super troop transport picked up. Her men mingled with the rest. Her ranking sergeant had told her that the Outer Rim's 505th was a good group. He didn't have to warn her about the twelve-twenty-second. She'd worked beside the other woman before. She'd stood beside Kuay Li'in as she'd begged to be rid of them. Or, him, rather. Siri figured she'd take care of the problem before this op was over. Afir was too sweet to see it that way, but the guy had to go. One way or another.

Siri approached the younger woman a couple of steps behind her 78th's CO, Captain BriGard. BriGard's easy gait indicated that he was comfortable with the situation.

Rex smiled as his contemporary approached. He squeezed Afir's elbow before stepping forward to meet the other man. Their breastplates bumped as each one tapped the other's shoulder once. It was like a mating dance for the well-armored.

"I see 1222 troops. Where's the charm school flunk-out?" BriGard asked.

Rex took a deep breath. "Have you met Master Afir Kuay Li'in?" he asked instead of answering the question.

Afir smiled and extended her hand. As Siri joined them she reached out, linking fingers with the other woman. They shared a deep admiration for the same man, even if they'd never been nor would be close friends themselves. It made them sisters of sorts, Siri decided as she squeezed the slender fingers in return.

"I suppose our reputation precedes us," Afir allowed. "I wonder if we run into trouble if anyone will come to our aide."

"It all depends on who makes the call, general, ma'am. If it's your main squeeze...probably not. Unless we can-"

"Fit it in between lunch and tea," Rex interrupted. He didn't want any suspicions when Racho fell. He'd have to clue Bri in so that he could pass the word to be mum about the bastard.

"As far as I'm concerned, Maisatt is Outer Rim through and through. We taking orders from you?" Bri asked.

Rex shook his head. "I'm not sure what the breakdown will be. Whinder will be joining us outside free air space," he explained.

"Nobody's taking orders from Racho," Afir confirmed. "I've got him under control."

Rex just lifted his brow. He didn't believe it. Siri didn't either. But that was neither here nor there.

"You've been on the planet before," she confirmed. "You and Ontana taking out the prisons?"

Afir nodded. "That's what I figured. Between the three of you you can figure out how to break communications, cut power, and capture Tent and/or Sandallauge if the opportunity presents itself. I want civilians out before we blow it. If we can't blow it, we leave it for next time."

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" Siri asked. Afir popped up the miniature again. "Is that a moon or the planet?!"

"That would be a compound covering, yes, almost half a planet," Afir told her.

"And we've got five jedi and maybe a thousand troops?"

Bri coughed discreetly. "A little less than that, I think."

"Pretty fair odds, don't you think?" Afir grinned.

"I knew I liked you," Siri told her, throwing her arm around her shoulder. "You and Ontara had better remember a hell of a lot about how you got off that planet," she teased as she led the dark-haired woman away.

All hell broke loose shortly after the super troop transport left to orbit the planet.

Dark, greyish-green clouds had been rolling in all afternoon as men and material were sorted. When the lightning zagged across the sky Afir had grinned hugely at Rex. She loved a good storm. He didn't care much one way or another so long as they weren't walking. Then he wanted something beneath his feet that drained well. Here he had just that, so he was prepared to shrug off the weather.

Except that the first drop that hit his arm sizzled. Which was weird for rain.

When he looked up he thought again how odd it was for clouds to circle a sky so quickly. But he was no molecular expert and he certainly wasn't a cyber-guru, so he left the weather up to the gods who created it and the scientists who studied it.

"What the kriff?" one of the men called. He held up a flimsi with a hole burned smack through it. Another trooper yelped, then slapped a gloved hand to his neck. When he removed it, half his ear lobe was melted goo in his palm.

"Not good," Rex groaned.

"Bad not good," Whinder agreed beside him. He squinted up at the sky, then looked down at his feet where a drop of rain was boiling the ground.

"Helmets! NOW!" Rex yelled. He was already running. "YOU! WASH! ARN! COVER ONE OF THE JEDI!"

As Rex watched, Afir reached out to snatch Ontana's cloak from her shoulders. The material was smoking. She flipped her own off to cover them both.

Whinder understood and agreed with the order. "I want two men on each jedi!" he said into his comlink. He lunged toward his own master.

"Down, now, Afir! Duck and cover!" Rex shouted as he approached. Afir's trust in him was so great that she obeyed. She curled into a ball, covering her head with her hands. Ontana was a bit slower coming down. Arn helped her along, tripping her so that she was flat on her face, then covering her body with his own. Wash slid down over her as well, sheltering her head with his own head and arms.

Rex was curled around Afir, his face plate in her hair. He hoped that the chatter on the comm lines meant that the other jedi were aware of the danger and allowing themselves to be protected.

The rain passed as swiftly as it had started. Another patch of clouds was racing their way, but they had a couple of minutes to breath, Rex figured.

He snatched the helmet off his head and spoke softly so that only Afir could hear. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. The wind had been well and truly knocked out of her when he'd dropped his body on top of hers. "_Yes_!" she hissed at him. He grinned into her hair, then risked a quick kiss to the available ear.

"I'm thinking that I'm probably going to make love to you this way," he told her. "I can reach all of my favorite parts."

She rolled her eyes at him and activated her comlink. "What's going on?" she asked.

Soara laughed as she was allowed up. Wash offered his hand to help her sit.

"There's more cloud cover moving in over us," Siri Tachi's voice reported. "I've got four guys making a living shelter out of their bodies. How long will their armor hold up?" she asked.

"It seems fine," Rex reported, examining that on the back of his troopers. "Tell them to keep their face plates downward. And to cover their radio components if possible."

Afir broadcast the order. Ontara hung her wrists on her knees and laughed. "Too bad none of the boys are here for this."

Afir let her head fall back with amusement. Her grin was happy and easy. "Can you imagine having to throw down Master Yoda or Kitt Fisto?" she asked the men beside her.

The girls laughed uproariously. The jedi connected by the link shared the comment. The troops were less amused than they were.

"Trust me, ma'am, it's much more enjoyable for us with you."


	17. whywhat

"So..." Afir smiled. His deep tones betrayed his amusement at life in general. She was pleased to hear from him. He'd been out of contact for days and days and days. "Guess where I've been..."

She sucked in a deep breath. There was no telling. Jedi were force-sensitive. Not psychic.

The last time she'd seen him she hadn't even been able to kiss him good-bye, not even touch his precious face. They'd been surrounded by her peers and his, dispatching to separate parts of the universe after rescuing some of his brethren who had been taken captive on a remote Outer Rim world.

"Off saving the galaxy on some luxurious Inner Core planet?"

"Pretty close. Naboo, actually." She watched the corner of his eyes crinkle in his enjoyment of his nonchalant announcement.

"What?!" Afir narrowed hers at him, biting her lip as she watched his happy face. She took a different tact. "Did they move the epicenter of the known world so that Naboo shifted to the Inner Core while I was getting my nails done?"

"Actually, I believe the good Senator Amidala requested the presence of our general."

"What?!" Now she was incredulous as to the gett'se it took to request the jedi with whom you were having a raging affair.

Rex forgot himself so much as to chuckle aloud. "I think she phrased it as General Kenobi and General Skywalker…the package deal."

Afir rolled her eyes. She could play cool. "So what were you doing on Naboo?" she sang back to him.

"Catching a madman scientist who replicated a long-eradicated nanovirus."

"Okay. Well...that sounds like fun. Did the Seps have _another_ creep working on killing you guys all in one whack?"

"Nah," he assured her in his heavy accent. "This one meant to kill the whole world - - and as many other worlds as he could with bombs carrying Blue Shadow Virus."

"What?!" Her voice was a gasp. He watched her face fall and her hands clasp onto the rim of some table or console. She was probably pale, but the blue holoimage didn't show it. If it did he'd have waited a few more days before comming her in the first place.

"Afir, love," he assured her. "We got it."

"_What?!"_ she shrieked. "You're sick? And you just called to tell me that?! Like it was nothing?"

Poor choice of words. "Wait! I'm not sick! I got it...but the generals went to retrieve a root and...it's _okay_ now."

"It's okay? You got the virus? The plague?! But it's _okay_? Where are you?"

"I certainly didn't get it on purpose, Afir! And I can't say as how it's an experience I'd like to repeat."

She sank onto her butt. The steam all went out of her. "Where are you?" she asked softly. Her eyes met his, thousands of parsecs apart. And the pain in her face wrenched his heart every bit as much as if she'd been standing beside him.

"I'm back on Kamino," he answered, shaking his head. "Afir, listen to me..."

She stood, gracefully getting to her feet. "I'm on my way," she promised, reaching out as if she could touch him. It wasn't the first time. She forgot on a regular basis that the flickering blue lightshow gave no comfort when she wanted to feel his warmth.

"I'm over it, Afir. We were administered the counteragent and we're on the mend."

She shook her head.

"Baby, when I said 'we got it' I meant that we contained the virus and deactivated the bombs and delayed transmission of it to other realms and captured the droids and the scientist responsible. I didn't mean to tell you that we'd been infected."

"WHAT?!"

Rex almost visibly rocked back on his heels. "_Please_ stop saying that, Afir," he groaned.

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

"That. What. I'm trying to have a civil conversation, reassuring myself that the girl I love is fine and dandy. And you keep saying 'What?' and I keep answering and it's really not seeming to go well."

"You wouldn't have told me that you were sick?" she asked.

Tough one. "No. Not when I knew I'd get better. There was no reason for you to know."

She was silent for a long moment while she digested _that_ tidbit of information. He'd thought about how he should answer. Truth was only one option, but it seemed like the best at the time. Now he wondered.

"Talk to me, Afir."

She worked her jaw from side to side. "You're fine now?" she asked, meeting his eyes.

He nodded. "Right as rain. And there's lots of _that_ here, love."

"You weren't going to tell me that you had a deadly virus?" she confirmed again.

"Once I was on the mend, no. I knew how you'd react-"

"And how would I react?" she snapped at him. When he held out his hands to indicate the way she was acting now she growled. "I am perfectly calm," she ground out.

"Don't give me that," he shot back at her. "Like you've not just stopped discreetly tapping that datapad on your arm? I'm fine and you have to stay where you are."

That pretty, delicate little jaw of hers jutted out. He could have taken bites out of her but he figured their affair would be harder to keep secret that way.

"I was afraid there for a bit," he confessed when she remained silent. "Ahsoka went down and I lost a couple of guys and we hadn't heard anything from either the capital city or the generals. I had my fingers on the comlink. I've got a data transmission ready to shoot off to you if my suit loses vitals, but I really badly wanted to hear your voice one more time," he said softly.

She looked like she could kill him or cry.

"If I was there I'd have pulled you to me and held you and told you like I should. But I face death every day, Afir. It's not that it's meaningless to me, but I fail to see the difference in me dodging blaster bolts and spending a few days under med center care for a bio infection."

She nodded. "I wish you would have called me immediately. As soon as you were off duty."

"I was strapped to a gurney too weak to breathe on my own, let alone dial you up. I waited until I was looking better. I didn't want you to overreact."

"Good plan."

"You're the one who fouled it. I had this whole monologue worked out so that I could skirt the issue and then honestly say 'I told you about that' should it come up years from now."

"You're in trouble, Rex."

He grinned at her. "You have to catch me to punish me, my love."

She nodded. Her comlink sounded but she ignored it. "You're really well now? No lasting aftereffects?"

"The virus is gone. We're recuperating nicely according to our makers. I'll let you be the judge of that the next time you see me." In a serious voice he added, "I love you. I only wanted to keep you from worrying overmuch about things beyond your control. There is no sense in looking for danger under every corner, with every breath you take. Your job and mine both have inherent pitfalls. It's part of being a soldier."

"Do you still want to be a soldier, Rex?"

"I do. There's still good I can do with my boys. Still good you can do with yours. Especially now that Rocho's out of the way."

"I don't know if I can-"

He nodded toward the link on the wrist of her blue form. "Someone needs you, Afir. Tell me you love me and then you must be about your business."

"I love you, but I worry-"

He laughed and shook his head. "Say, 'I love you, Rex,' and leave it at that."

"I love you, Rex," she smiled at him.

Again his face grew serious. "I love you, Afir. All the time. With all my heart."

Her throat was too thick for her to respond with more than a quick nod. He cut the link and scrubbed his hands over his face.

_That_ couldn't have _possibly_ gone any worse.


End file.
